The Violin
by Misuto
Summary: "Is that what that was? I thought someone was trying to strangle a cat in here." Havoc is trying to learn how to play the violin. Edward is being a teenager. And their problems just got a whole lot bigger. T for swearing.
1. The Violin

**THE VIOLIN**

 **By** : Misuto

 **Set** : Fullmetal Alchemist, early series.

 **Disclaimers** : Fanfiction based on the work of Arakawa

 **AN** : Early series, set at Eastern Command. Ed is being dramatic because despite being a gifted alchemist, he is after all, a teenager.

I did my best at catching spelling and grammar mistakes but if I missed any, please let me know!

* * *

The strings gave a discordant twang under his fingers, the bow slicing painfully across the instrument making everyone wince. Lieutenant Havoc dropped his head with a groan, letting his arms sag and the violin bump gently against the carpet.

"Oh, this is hopeless," he moaned to the chuckling of his co-worker. Breda shook his head, his eyes never leaving his paperwork but his toothy smile was proof that he was enjoying every minute of his friend's misery.

Havoc looked up as the door to the office opened and Edward Elric walked in, his arms filled with books and papers, a pen held in his teeth. The teen gave Havoc a cursory glance, his eyes resting on the instrument in the man's hand for a fraction of a second longer as he dropped his armful on the desk by the window (the one he had started claiming whenever he was in town).

The other brother was not with him which meant the young alchemist actually intended to work. It was normal for Alphonse to wander into town when his bother sat down to write what he considered a report, which admittedly did not happen often enough.

Fullmetal blew the bangs out of his eyes as he watched the instrument in Havoc's hands critically. "Is that what that was?" he said with a hint of a sneer "I thought someone was trying to strangle a cat in here."

Breda could no longer control his mirth and he dropped his head to his desk and laughed. Even Sergeant Fuery smiled as he looked up from his radio.

Havoc gave another groan as he picked himself up, shooting Breda a dark look. "I'm _trying_ to play the violin," he said cuttingly, bringing the bow up again. The strings ground against each other painfully and Fullmetal winced and gave an outward shudder. "Seriously, don't quit your day job," he said through gritted teeth.

The Lieutenant's indignant front collapsed and he hung his head. "Oh she's going to hate me!" he moaned.

"He promised Jenny Mackay he'd help her with her concert," chuckled Breda at the teen's quizzical glance. "Told her he could play and everything."

"I didn't think it would be this hard!" wailed Havoc. He gave a yelp as the instrument was plucked from his loose grip. He hadn't even heard the teen get up and it actually creeped him out how stealthy the boy could be when he wanted. He also knew how destructive he was.

He lunged after the violin but Fullmetal held it easily away from his grasping arms. "Wait! NO! Please, Chief, don't break it!"

The teen gave him a withering look before rolling his eyes in such an Elric manner. "I'm not gonna break it," he said, running his thumb across the strings. The sound made him grimace. As Havoc watched Edward deftly toyed with the wooden pegs on the head of the instrument, plucking the strings repeatedly as he went.

The way he held the violin made him look like a professional. "I just thought it might help-" he said forcefully when he noticed the others were staring openly as well. "-if it was tuned," he said running his left thumb over the strings again. This time, it sounded _right_. He thrust the instrument back at Havoc before returning to his work. "Though it doesn't make up for the skill of the player." he said under his breath.

Havoc stood in the middle of the room, the violin in his hand and stared as a revelation hit him. "You can play," he said. It wasn't a question. Edward made a point of opening the heavy cover of one of his books carefully, letting it fall open noisily on the desk and didn't answer.

"I didn't know you could play," Havoc pressed. Edward gave him a mild glare.

"I didn't say I could. But I know what it's _supposed_ to sound like," he said evenly. The teen was uncomfortably aware of the others looking at him with open curiosity.

"But you know something, right?" continued the man.

Edward faced the window and pointedly flipped a page in the heavy tome. He said nothing, which should have been a warning sign, if Havoc had been paying attention. The thing about the Fullmetal Alchemist was that despite his fame for being a loud-mouthed, flamboyant brat, the noise was mostly for show. His fits of rage were alarming, but also somewhat comical.

There were a few people, however, who could testify to seeing the prodigy when he was angry or upset for real. He didn't yell or shout or throw things. He was quiet and those eerie amber eyes zeroed in on the source of his problem with terrifying accuracy.

"Do you mind? I'm trying to do some real work," he told his book.

"Come on, please! You have to teach me! At least the basics. She'll kill me…," begged the man, blatantly ignoring the young alchemist.

Edward shut the heavy cover of the book aggressively, sweeping it, his papers and his pens off the desk into his arms and rising to his feet, turning to face the Lieutenant in one swift and smooth motion.

"Maybe," he said with a dangerous edge to his voice that actually made Havoc flinch, "I should break your arm instead and then you'd have a legit reason why you can't play her stupid concert."

And he left.

Edward made for the door among staff trying to mind their own business. As his hand reached for the handle, the door was pulled open suddenly from the other side and he came face to face with Colonel Mustang, Lieutenant Hawkeye a step behind and the towering suit of armor that was Al behind her.

If Mustang was surprised to find someone standing directly in the door, he didn't show it.

"Ah, Fullmetal! Just the person I was hoping to see. My office, now," he said in his usual superior way, pointing to the door at the other side of the room.

Edward opened his mouth to retort but a quick glance to Hawkeye made him change his mind. Instead he gave an exaggerated sigh, rolled his eyes and moved aside to let Mustang pass. He followed the older man back through the outer office and disappeared into the Colonel's office, slamming the door shut behind him. Al wisely decided to wait until they were finished and chose a spot on the couch outside the Colonel's office.

Breda and Falman exchanged significant looks. Fuery buried his head in his nest of wires and Havoc discreetly stashed the instrument he was still gripping under the nearest desk. Hawkeye was left standing by her own desk, a frown forming as she eyed each of them in turn.

"What is going on in here," she demanded, her hands resting on her hips, dangerously close to her firearms.

After a moment of silence, Fuery spoke up. "Elric is being a teenager, I think."

Riza raised an eyebrow, looking at Havoc who was still standing awkwardly by the desk recently vacated by said teenager.

"This wouldn't have anything to do with that violin, would it? Did he break it?" Maybe she didn't intend to sound hopeful at the thought, but the sentiment came through regardless.

At the mention that his brother might have caused damaged, Al looked between Havoc and Riza with as much trepidation as a metal face could express.

Breda broke into another fit of suppressed giggles, and at the sign of a smile appearing at the corner of the First Lieutenant's mouth, the others visibly relaxed.

"He didn't break anything did he?" asked the younger Elric, exasperation clear in his ringing voice.

Havoc sighed, "No, he didn't," he said with resignation. "I was hoping he could help me learn," he said, eyeing the Colonel's closed door. "But he just snapped at me. Guess I picked a bad day, looks like the Chief is in one his moods today," he shrugged. He'd never actually admit it, but even at 13, the kid scared the hell out of him sometimes.

When Riza turned her raised eyebrow on Falman, the man explained in his usual diplomatic monotone. "Lieutenant Havoc was under the impression that Fullmetal knew how to play the violin and kept badgering him for lessons even though the boy told him," he said with a pointed look at the man in question, "that he didn't".

"Ah," was all the blonde woman said.

That seemed to settle to matter as Riza sat herself behind her desk and the others went back to work. She glanced at the Colonel's office. It seemed to be pretty quiet in there, she supposed that was either a good sign or the two of them had already murdered each other.

In the reigning silence, it was Al who spoke up.

"But he does know how."

The staff all stared at the younger boy. "Well he does," added Al, almost defensively. "Mom sent him to lessons down in the village. And Teacher used to make him practice too."

Riza considered the suit of armor. The sheer size of Alphonse made the couch he sat on look tiny by comparison. It was easy to forget that he was just a kid inside. She tried to imagine what the real Alphonse would look like sitting, tiny, on the couch surrounded by adults. They'd been through so much already.

It reminded her, and the others as well, that the brothers were, in many ways, still strangers to them. They knew them through work, yes, but what about outside of work? What did Edward do during his spare time?

 _Read books, probably._

"What? I was right!" exclaimed Havoc with triumph. "That little- so he _was_ just being pissy for no reason."

Al fixed his red-eyed gaze on him and Havoc decided that _that_ Elric creeped him out too. What was it with these kids?

"Not exactly, Lieutenant," Al's voice rang inside the suit of armor, small and a little shy but amplified by the hollow shell. "He hasn't touched an instrument since…well..." Al pointed at his shoulder, not having to finish the sentence.

Havoc mentally slapped himself. It was also easy to forget that their little resident alchemist was actually, technically, crippled. He did such a good job of hiding it.

"Yeah, I imagine it would be rather difficult to play anything with only one normal working arm," mused Breda.

"Don't take it personally, Lieutenant," continued the younger Elric. "Brother just doesn't like being reminded of the things he used to be able to do, although he's too stubborn to admit it."

 _Harsh reality brought to you by an eleven year old._ thought Riza wryly. "I think you'd better drop it Havoc," she said. She really didn't think Edward would appreciate them all discussing him like this. "Isn't there work you should be doing?" she remarked pointedly.

Havoc sighed and sat at his desk beside Breda with a huff. He'd just have to figure it out himself.

Still though, he mused, it surprised him. _Who knew the kid could play? He is supposed to be a genius after all._ Somehow, it made the little-bratty-alchemy-prodigy-turned-human-weapon seem that much more human.


	2. Country Boy

**Country Boy**

* * *

"You want me to what?"

Roy leveled a cold look across his desk. Why did this always have to be difficult? Honestly, he didn't think he had this many headaches _before_ they added the blond terror to his team.

"Stay in East city for a while," he said for maybe the third time. Didn't this kid _ever_ pay attention?

"Why?"

Roy grit his teeth and let out a sigh, reigning in his temper. This. This is why he didn't want kids.

"Because, Fullmetal, the Crime Unit has requested an alchemist be added to their team for their investigation and I'm assigning you."

"But-,"

"You will report to the police headquarters tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM sharp and-,"

"-what about me and Al's work?"

"-work with the Crime Unit to help them solve their case."

The two looked at each other over the Colonel's large desk. Ed looked like he wanted to say a million things to the older man, none of it good, but didn't know where to start. He took a deep breath. "We had a deal that you'd give us leads about the….you know. The stone," he ground out.

Roy leaned back in his seat and studied the teenager. "And I will. I've given you lots already. Not my fault they turn out to lead nowhere," he said, shrugging.

"However-," he continued as Ed opened his mouth to retort, "I don't have anything right now and you," he said, reaching into the top drawer of his desk, "still need to do some real work. So deal with it." Roy pulled out a plastic bag and tossed it across the desk towards the other alchemist.

Edward gave him his best death glare but Roy was immune to it by now. After a while, the teen's curiosity got the better of him and he walked up to the desk and picked up the bag.

"What's this?" he said, holding it up to examine its contents. There were three brown coins sitting in a neat line at the bottom of the bag.

"Evidence. You're to examine it thoroughly and write a report on your findings to bring with you to the meeting you're attending tomorrow morning."

Ed's eyebrows came together and he looked up at the Colonel with a blank expression. "You want me," he said slowly, "to write a report on three copper coins?"

Mustang returned his blank look before a hint of a smirk crept into the corner of his mouth. "Honesty, Fullmetal…And you came so highly recommended," he said with a dramatic sigh.

"Asshole! Are you making fun of me!?" snapped the teen.

"Why don't you take a closer look," Roy told him flatly, letting the insult roll over him.

Ed huffed as he plopped himself into the chair facing Mustang's desk. He tore the bag open and dumped the contents onto the polished surface. The three coins skipped over the wood, coming to a rest with a clatter. Two faced up, the other down.

They were plain, standard Amestrian coppers, worth a couple cenz each. Ed had almost expected them to be covered in blood or something but they were clean.

"Six fucking cenz," he said moodily.

"Your investigative capabilities astound me," replied Roy sarcastically.

"Hey, you're the one who's assigning me to this case! Jerk."

Roy rolled his eyes but caught himself. Having the kid around sometimes made him revert to his own teenage mannerisms. Something Hawkeye was only too glad to point out.

"Because you're an _Alchemist_ , aren't you?" he said pointedly.

Roy saw the moment the gears in the young prodigy's mind clicked into place. His gold eyes slid back to the coins and he pulled the glove off his left hand with his teeth.

Taking one of the coppers between the thumb and index finger of his good hand, Ed closed his eyes and rubbed the coin between them.

"It's a fake," he said with certainty holding it up so it caught the light. The copper was shiny and looked newly minted. Ed dug around in his pocket and came up with a real copper coin, holding the two side by side. He was no expert on Amestrian coinage but the copper _looked_ legit to the naked eye. The weight, size and design were perfect replicas.

"Why do you say that?" Encouraged Mustang with a bit of a smile. He already knew this, of course, because he had been briefed on the case beforehand. But he wanted Ed to figure it out for himself.

"Because it's too perfect. No one mints pure copper coins," answered the teen again with certainty.

"Very good. That's what you'll write in your report. The crime unit is currently investigating what they believe to be a widespread network of counterfeit money. They've requested the assistance of an alchemist to help them tell the good from the bad. I'm sending you to help."

Ed let the fake copper spin across the desk top. "For how long?"

"As long as it takes. Could be weeks or it could be months," replied Mustang simply.

Ed shot to his feet looking stricken. "I can't stay in East City for months! What about Al?"

"You'd better solve the case quickly then."

"Bastard, What about-,"

Roy was getting tired of this conversation already. His other subordinates would have listened to the briefing, said yes, sir. Thank you, sir. And been out the door in ten, maybe fifteen minutes flat. Why did he put up with this?

"Fullmetal," he growled, letting impatience seep into the words, "in case you've forgotten, again, you work for Amestris out of Eastern Command. And I'm in charge of Eastern Command which means you work for me! And if I say you're going to work with the crime unit until they solve their case, you're going to do it or you can kiss that shiny watch of yours good-bye! And I don't want to hear you whining about it! Grow up!"

There was a moment of tense silence as the two glared at each other.

"Fine!" retorted the young alchemist, swiping the coins off the desk and stuffing the lot in his pocket. Mustang's eye twitched at this serious mishandling of evidence but decided to let it slide.

Ed looked like he wanted to say more but settled with a muttered "Fine, asshole."

There was more tacked on to the end of that, none of which Mustang wanted to know. As the teen reached the door, he gave his superior officer a glare that could melt glass. "When I'm done with this, you'd better have something _useful_ for me," he spat. And with a final flourish of the garish red coat, the door slammed and he was gone.

Roy sat back in his chair, eyeing the door with murderous intent. "Always a pleasure, Fullmetal. Always a pleasure."

At least nothing in his office was broken this time.

* * *

Ed took a deep breath as he stood on the sidewalk outside of the police station. He knew the police was just an extension of the military but everything was run _differently_.

"Don't worry brother, you still have authority over everyone in there," encouraged Al.

As much as his brother liked to assert himself (sometimes a little too violently) as a confident, _genius_ State Alchemist, Alphonse knew him better than anyone else. He knew, deep inside, that Ed was just as nervous as anyone would be walking into a room full of strangers. He _was_ confident. And he _was_ a genius. But he was also only thirteen. He faced moments of uncertainty, just like everyone else. And he struggled with asserting authority over men three times his age, though the silver watch helped a great deal.

Above all, Al knew that what Ed wanted the most, aside from finding the stone of course, was to prove himself. He wanted people to stop looking down on him both figuratively and literally. He was smarter and more skilled than most people around him but what mattered was what could be seen. He was young and he was small.

"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?" asked the younger Elric.

Ed shook his head with a gentle smile. "Nah, I'll live. Besides, since I'm stuck doing this, it'll be more efficient to split our time. You can keep doing research on stuff that _actually_ matters."

"Solving crimes matters too, brother."

Ed looked down at the sidewalk. "It's not going to get you your body back," he said quietly.

Al watched him for a moment. He really didn't like it when Ed was like this. The guilt and self-pity and depression were just not the right fit for him. "Don't worry, we'll get there."

He laid a giant gauntlet on Ed's shoulder in what was clearly meant as a gentle, friendly bump but instead almost sent his brother face first into the pavement.

Ed sprang up like a spring board giving the armor a playful punch. "Watch it!" he snapped, without the usual venom.

"Oops, sorry Ed! I guess I'm still not used to my size."

"That better not be a jab at _my_ size!" quipped the older Elric. A woman gave them a wide berth as she entered the station.

Al wished he could roll his eyes. "Honestly, brother… You should go or you'll be late. Let's meet back at the hotel for dinner time and please try not to kill anyone today."

Ed sighed. "Fine! Don't get into any trouble," he raised his metal fist and Al bumped it (gently this time) in a familiar gesture.

"Same to you!"

Edward gave his little brother his trademark grin before waving and walking through the doors. This should be interesting.

* * *

The woman at the reception desk looked up and then lowered her gaze to the blond standing in front of her.

"Hello, can I help you?" she asked politely. She had one of _those_ smiles. The motherly kind. Ed suppressed a shudder.

"Yeah, I'm expected for a meeting with the crime unit? Which way do I go?"

The woman's eyebrows rose slightly but that was all that betrayed her astonishment. She was very professional. "And your name?" she asked.

"Edward Elric"

"Let's see." She shuffled around the papers on her desk and pulled out a ledger book. "Ah, here we go. Elric…..," she nodded, finding his name where she obviously expected it to be. She looked back up at him and frowned slightly. "You're Edward Elric? I'm sorry, but you're going have to show me some identification," she said with a hint of skepticism.

Ed was prepared though and he had his watch out before she even finished her sentence. This proved to be enough to convince her and she nodded.

"The meeting is scheduled to start in ten minutes. Board room number three," she said and pointed down a hallway to the left of the reception area.

"Thanks." Ed gave her his best grin as he stuffed the watch back in his pocket, along with his hands and sauntered down the hall. He was aware of the receptionist's eyes on him all the way down the hallway and knew they would be whispering about him the moment he disappeared around the corner.

He was surprised to find he was getting used to it.

The boardroom was already mostly full when he got there and all eyes turned to him when Ed walked in. He firmed his resolve under their scrutiny.

"You lost, kid?" one of the men sneered. He was a middle aged man with a scruffy beard and sharp mean eyes.

"I'm here for the meeting," Ed said with a convincing confidence he did not quite feel inside.

They all laughed.

"Look kid. This here is Crime Investigations," the older man said with self-importance. "We don't go looking for lost puppies and kittens," he jeered, to more laughter.

Ed frowned at this and flashed them his watch "I'm Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist."

The men paused disbelievingly at the sight of the silver watch, but many of them scoffed.

"Is this a joke?" barked the same man. Ed could tell he was a bit of a ring leader. "I thought they were supposed to send us an alchemist not a half-pint!"

Ed felt his ears flush red and he snapped "Who're you calling-," but his retort was cut short.

"Why don't you go back to whichever sheep hole you crawled out of, _coun-try boy,_ " continued the scruffy man in a terrible imitation of the distinctive East Country accent Ed and Al tried so hard to hide, "-and tell Eastern Command to send us a _real_ alchemist. Preferably one that's not still in diapers." The men laughed even harder at that.

Edward grit his teeth and pressed his hands together. Without so much as a warning, the man's uniform, which was a darker colour than the military blue, fused itself with the chair the man was occupying. The wood of the chair's arms twisted up, trapping the man's wrists where they rested.

The men closest to him jumped out of their seats in astonishment.

"What the-" was all he managed to say before he found himself completely trapped by the furniture.

When the light of the transmutation faded, Ed was satisfied to note that he had the complete and silent attention of the entire board room.

"How's that?" he said, letting his accent bleed through out of pure spite. "Real enough for ya?"

He could see that some of the men looked impressed, others amused and others just staring blankly, not able to understand what had just happened.

"You little shit!" snarled Scruffy. "I'll kick your ass, you-," his eyes snapped up to somewhere above Ed's head at the same instant his mouth snapped shut.

A deep voice boomed from that same point. "Gentlemen! Now that we're all here, we can begin."

Ed spun around and found himself looking into the chest of an older man wearing an important looking uniform. His eyes scanned the black fabric quickly looking for a rank, but he wasn't very familiar with the police branch. The man looked to be in his late fifties, with peppered hair and a matching mustache. His eyes were dark like Mustang's, with the same amount of cunning but with more kindness.

Even without a uniform, it was obvious to Ed who was in charge by the way the other men behaved. They stopped talking immediately, looking somber and well behaved and Scruffy did his best to reign in his temper, though his face was turning purple from the effort.

The old man smiled down at him kindly.

"Fullmetal, why don't you take a seat," he said politely, gesturing to an empty chair away from the scruffy man.

Ed did so without a single complaint from anybody. The old man sat himself at the head of the table and looked around at the men and women. There was about a dozen, including Ed. If he noticed that Scruffy was fused to his chair, he didn't say anything and everyone else was just as happy to keep their mouths shut.

"Now then," he said in a matter of fact tone. "Oh, before we begin," he said, turning to Ed who had picked a seat on his left, "Fullmetal, would you be so kind as to release Detective Hartley from his chair?" He said it as if this sort of thing happened on a regular basis.

Ed blinked up at the man innocently before placing his hands on the table top in the most casual manner possible. The surface lit up in a flare of arcing alchemical lightning. Several of the officers whipped their hands off the table or quickly lifted their papers and coffee mugs in surprise. But the table was not his intended target.

Scruffy's chair, which was touching the table on one corner, lit up and the wood and fabric separated as easily as it they had merged. Scruffy, or rather Detective Hartley, glared murderously at him and Ed met it as a challenge accepted. He hadn't let people bully him before and he wasn't about to start now.

Still though, he thought grimly, if this was a preview of how this job was going to go, he hoped now more than ever that it would be over quickly.

The old man introduced himself as Commissioner Barnes then proceeded to introduce the team he had gathered to work on the case. It was obvious that most if not all of them came from within the department and already knew each other.

"-and finally we have here the Fullmetal Alchemist, Mr. Edward Elric from Eastern Command. Fullmetal will be taking time from his busy schedule to work with us as our alchemy analyst and consultant."

Ed leaned back in his chair and picked a random spot on the wall to stare at, avoiding the curious or jeering glances sent his way.

Barnes ploughed on regardless. A thick file folder was passed to each of them as the old man plunged into the details of the case. After about half an hour, Ed had already read through the file while Barnes was still talking and his mind began to wander.

He wondered what Al was up to and thought that whatever it was, it had to be more interesting than _this._ He stifled a yawn.

He wondered what Winry was up to. Wondered if the farmers were out in their fields right now, planting their crops. He wondered what was going on at the office. And his mind eventually came to rest on Havoc. Havoc and his stupid fiddle.

 _Can you play?_ His eyes rested on his gloved automail hand which fisted at the thought. What a thing to ask a one armed cripple.

He heard Granny's voice in his head and could almost feel the sharp whack to the back of his head. _You lost your arm, not your life. The only reason you can't do things the way you used to is because you're just not trying hard enough!_ It was early in his recovery when he'd sat at the table looking forlornly at a juicy steak he couldn't cut. If there was one thing he admired about Granny was that she didn't beat around the bush.

Working with amputees gave her enough ammunition to kick his sorry ass into gear. Edward was certain, though he'd never asked, that Pinako had seen people with worse injuries than him.

Maybe he could- _no!_ He didn't have time to play around re-teaching himself how to play. Not with Al the way he was. Havoc could take his fiddle and shove it.

With a sudden jolt, Ed realized that two hours had passed and he hadn't heard a single thing of what Barnes had lectured. It seemed as if the meeting was coming to an end and people were gathering their things.

"Well then, that's all for now. Fullmetal," he said turning to the young alchemist, "I want you to head down to warehouse six right away and begin with the analysis of the evidence. Ask reception and someone will show you the way."

As the team got up, Barnes gave them a signal to remain in their seats. Apparently, Ed was the only one dismissed. So nodding politely to the Commissioner, he picked up is folder and left, closing the door behind him.

He made to turn down the hall and collided with a harried looking woman. Papers went flying as they both dropped what they were holding.

"Shit!"

"Oh dear"

They both looked at each other in embarrassment. "I'm so sorry," she said hastily gathering the papers she had dropped, which Ed saw was a pile of pamphlets. "Ah, this is what happens when you rush! And I'm already late for my meeting…"

Ed felt sorry for her and helped her pick up her pamphlets before gathering the files from his own folder. She thanked him profusely and rushed away.

As he picked up the case files, trying to put sense and order into the pile, he could still hear Barne's deep voice carrying through the door. He wasn't necessarily listening on purpose, but _Elric_ caught his attention. He only heard words that Barnes put extra emphasis on like _disappointed, embarrassed_ and _behavior_. He sounded angry.

Ed moved closer to the door quietly.

"…don't need to remind you that not only does he out-smart every single one of you, he also out-ranks you. So unless you want to be cited for insubordination, you'd do best to remember that!"

There was an uncomfortably long silence before Barnes said "Dismissed"

Ed did not wait to be found eavesdropping by the door and was gone by the time the first person left the boardroom.

He suddenly liked Barnes a whole lot more and thought _Well maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all…_

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** 1\. If you noticed that Ed calls it a fiddle rather than a violin, this is not a mistake

2\. I'm aware that an east country accent is not a _thing_ in the series but I thought, why not? It could happen, all countries have local dialects so why not Amestris?


	3. Moral Support

Ed spent that afternoon sifting through the mountains of evidence that dominated warehouse six. It was mostly coinage, which is what he was assigned to for the moment. There was other stuff in there as well, which he eyed curiously from two tables over but never got to check out.

He didn't touch the paper bills because, as he told the woman in charge of the evidence analysis, paper was paper, no matter what was printed on it. The best he could do was analyze the ink, but she told him not to worry about it for now.

As it turned out, not all the fake coins were as pure as the coppers Mustang had given him. In fact the majority of them were not pure enough to pass as real coins. They had beautiful, real looking exteriors with a mash of seemingly random metals making up the core.

And so he sat on a high stool at a long table laden with coppers, nickels, silvers and golds sorting, counting and writing out the individual make up of each.

It was long, tedious work and the novelty of it wore out very fast. Still, he was working three times faster than the other two alchemists sitting at the long table doing the same thing. They were not State Alchemists, he was surprised to note.

Aside from the polite greetings, the two mostly kept to each other, chatting as they worked like two people who knew each other very well.

One was a tall, lithe young man who liked to crack sly, witty jokes on the side. His name was Sean. He worked over a large sketchbook in which he had pre-drawn a number of metal-based arrays and flipped through several just to figure out the components of a single coin.

Anna was the other. She was a heavy-set middle aged woman with a kind face and a loud voice. She too had a series of pre-drawn arrays but preferred to (or maybe was only able to) work with silver coins.

Ed didn't need arrays. He picked up a coin at random, jotted down the percentage of each of the metals that made it up, and then tossed it carelessly in its appropriate pile. He worked absent mindedly, boredom written all over his face. He now knew, with certainty, that Mustang had given him this job for this very reason. It was boring as hell.

In the middle of inwardly cursing the Colonel, Ed looked up and noticed that Sean and Anna were watching him work, amused.

"I can see why they make the big bucks, those State Alchemists," remarked Sean teasingly.

"Are you actually working over there or are you just pretending?" Anna boomed at the teen. She seemed like a jolly woman by nature and her question was not meant to be unkind.

Ed blinked back at them, his mind taking a moment to catch up with current events.

"What? I'm working!" he said defensively. He lifted his notebook briefly, showing them his jotted notes.

Sean smiled, turning to Anna. "Didn't you know?" he said nodding in Ed's direction. "They say he does alchemy without a circle. Just," he pressed his hands together in an imitation of Ed's style and then held them out to the older woman, palms out, "like that. So it's true then?" he continued, looking at Ed.

Anna let out an impressed whistle. "I'm not even going to start to understand how that's possible," she said shaking her head.

"Am I right?" inquired Sean.

Ed looked down at his hands then back at the pair and nodded, amused.

Anna continued to stare at him. "How old are you?" she asked him suddenly. She was very direct.

Ed was uncomfortable talking about himself but thought it would be rude to just not answer. "I just turned thirteen," he said carefully and not without a bit of pride. He was testing the waters with these two. After his experience with the others working this case, he wasn't sure what to make of them.

"Good god, I have a son your age," she remarked in disbelief. "Lazy as hell but not half as good looking, mind you," she added winking at him. Ed's face flushed red at the quip and he fumbled with the coin he was examining. They laughed but it was a good natured exchange. Ed knew that he was going to get along with them. They were both so light-hearted, it was infectious.

He offered her a grin which both Sean and Anna returned. The tension of strangers was broken.

"Hey, how come they hired me anyway, if they already had the two of you working on it?" asked Ed, longing to be deep into the books waiting for him back at the hotel.

Sean's eyebrows rose as he waved his hand in the general direction of the money in the middle of the table. "It would probably take us months to go through all of this. Whereas you," he said, appraising Ed's pile of already sorted coins, which was considerably larger than Sean's and Anna's combined, "-will probably plough through it in three days."

"There were more of us," offered Anna, "but it was taking too long. I think the higher ups were trying to go easy on the budget by delegating the work to the few alchemists already on staff but it soon became obvious they had to hire a professional."

Ed chuckled at being called a professional.

"So instead of six of us monkeys working away at it," continued Sean bringing his knee to rest against the edge of the table, his foot on the highest rung of his stool, "they replaced four amateurs with one of you and kept the two best looking ones here for moral support," he said, motioning between him and Anna with a straight face.

Ed stared at him, unsure if the man was being serious. The corner of his mouth turned up the moment Anna cracked and started laughing.

"Less chatting and more working over there!" called the supervisor from across the room.

"Yes Ma'am!" Anna called back instantly as Sean and Ed ducked their heads back to the table chuckling.

They spent the rest of the afternoon in good humor. By the time Ed was making his way back to the hotel, he couldn't stop smiling and realized that it had been a long time since he'd laughed so hard.

* * *

When Ed checked in the next day, he was told, with extreme politeness, that he would be working in Evidence for the rest of the week. He groaned at the thought of spending day after day looking at coins but figured that he could probably bear it if Sean and Anna were at his table again.

To his immense disappointment, they weren't. The alchemists working there were two disgruntled older men Ed recognized from the meeting. They more or less ignored him the entire time. To be fair, they mostly ignored each other too, but that didn't make the long day any less tedious.

At about half way through the day, Sean appeared in the doorway and, catching Ed's attention, jerked his head in the direction of the door. With a glance around the room, Ed saw that the supervisor was busy and he got up to see what Sean wanted.

"You need a coffee break, my friend," the man told him, quite seriously, as soon as he was outside. "I'm heading there now, if you want to know where the staff room is."

Ed thought about it for a second then agreed. Everyone else came and went as they pleased and he desperately needed coffee.

Ed squinted in the bright sun after the darkness of the warehouse as the two of them made their way to the main building. Sean gave him a passing tour as they went.

"That's the garage, where they do the maintenance on all the automobiles. We don't have as many as the units in Central do though, because they're so expensive. And that there is warehouse four, it's used as surplus ammunition storage for the military."

All the buildings looked exactly the same on the outside but Ed _knew_ what was housed in warehouse three before they got to it. It smelled very familiar and he was surprised to feel a pang of nostalgia.

"Horses," he said with certainty, smiling a little.

"Very good," said Sean, impressed. They veered from their path to poke their heads into the stables briefly. Ed smiled at the familiar smell of hay and horse. His family had never actually owned horses but they were a staple on most farms in the Resembool Valley.

Ed climbed up onto the bottom board of the nearby stall so he could see over the top at the velvet back of a chestnut mare. She snorted gently as he patted her neck.

Sean watched him closely, amused. "Do you like horses Mr. State Alchemist?" he teased.

Ed gave him a bashful smile and shrugged. "They're okay."

Sean joined him up on the stall wall and gave the horse an awkward pat on the flank. "The military is pushing us to phase out the mounted patrols but won't give us the funds to buy automobiles," he mused. "Personally, I think the mounted police can maneuver better in a crowd than an Auto ever could but times are changing, I guess."

"Autos don't spook though," Ed pointed out. "And they don't shit all over either," he added wryly remembering the less than admirable experiences of his youth.

"You come from east country, don't you?" said Sean gently. It was more of a statement than a question.

 _Again_ , thought Ed. Was it really that obvious?

Sean must have read his thoughts because he offered a kind smile. "Your accent comes through once in a while. Not always, mind you. But on certain words." He frowned a little. "I heard that Hartley was being an ass to you. Don't take it personally, he's an ass to everyone," he said flatly.

Ed sighed. "Well, you can't strap a cat worth two shots in a pond," he added grimly.

Sean just stared at him blankly. "I'm sorry, what?"

Ed returned his blank stare. "You can't…." he waved his hands in front of him trying to express himself, then sighed in resignation when he couldn't. "You know what, never mind. What I mean is, if that's the way he is, it can't be helped," he finished.

Sean just shook his head in amusement. "Also that," he said pointing at the young alchemist, "expressions like that give you away."

Ed just shrugged. He'd been living in and out of East City for little over a year now and he still felt like an outsider.

"All joking aside, though," continued Sean seriously, "and I don't normally give advice, but you shouldn't try to hide your roots. They're what make us who we are."

Ed mulled this over on the rest of the walk to the staff room. It was good advice, but in his experience, it was better to fit in. It made it easier for him and Al to get their way while traveling. He still didn't understand why people looked down on the East Country rural towns, but they did. Al's theory was that the area was uncomfortably too close to Ishval for most people. The farmers might as well have started the war the way the rest of the country treated them.

This had been a harsh reality for the two brothers when they had arrived in East City. The short time they had spent away from home, in Dublith, had not prepared them for the reality of the big city.

Ed was jolted from his musing by a passing man who nodded at him curtly, saying "Sir" as a greeting. He started noticing more people doing the same, even one woman outwardly saying, "Good afternoon, Fullmetal."

After the fifth person, Ed frowned at the smirk on Sean's face. "Why is everyone being so damn nice to me all of a sudden? It's creeping me out…"

"Well," said Sean like someone just itching to spill a secret, "the Boss _did_ wring them out yesterday."

Ed remembered the conversation he'd overheard outside the boardroom. He honestly hadn't expected anything to come of it except _more_ contempt from people forced to obey a kid.

Sean stopped in the hall just outside a room labeled _Lunch Room_ and turned to Ed with a sly smile still plastered on his freckled face. "I expect it has more to do with the notice."

"What notice?"

"That notice," the man said while pointing to a notice board Ed had, ironically, failed to notice.

A large paper had been tacked to the center of the board. It stated, in rather bold letters:

 **-Official Notice-**

 **From the Office of the Disciplinary Council.**

 _A reminder on how to properly address a State Alchemist:_

 _State Alchemists are official alchemists appointed by his excellency, the Furhrer King Bradley to serve Amestris in specialized fields of alchemy._

 _A State Alchemist holds rank equal to that of MAJOR within the military and should be addressed by their STATE APPOINTED TITLE and with all due respect befitting such a rank._

 _State Alchemists who hold a rank higher than MAJOR shall be addressed according to their rank with all due respect befitting such a rank unless their function as a State Appointed Alchemist takes priority over their military appointment for a specific assignment._

 _Failure to properly address official personnel is considered an act of insubordination and offenders will face disciplinary actions._

Ed looked around furtively suddenly very self-conscious. "Am I the only State Alchemist working with the police right now?"

"You sure are. And aren't you a celebrity," Sean teased.

Ed groaned and let his forehead fall against the notice board. He hated being saluted at HQ and was very glad for the informality of Mustang's crew. He didn't exactly love being looked down on or made fun of like that asshole had done yesterday but this. This took it to extremes the other way.

He didn't want to be _singled_ _out_ at all, good or bad. He had half a heart to tear the notice off the board. He knew Al would be laughing at him if he were here right now.

And like a moment out of a nightmare, a young, nervous-looking Private came striding up the hall towards him, stopped, saluted him crisply and handed him a folded paper. "Sir! You've been summoned by Colonel Mustang," he said, eyes fixed to a point somewhere above Ed's head (which annoyed the teen more than he cared to admit.)

Ed snatched the paper from him resisting an urge to look around to make sure no one was watching. The man continued to stand in front of him at attention. "Um, thanks?" Ed said and waved at the man awkwardly in dismissal wondering if he felt just as ridiculous saluting a teenager as Ed did being saluted at. The soldier visibly relaxed before walking away.

Sean turned to him then with one eyebrow raised. "Would you like me to start calling you 'Sir'?" he asked.

Ed gave him his best death glare and growled "don't you dare," the note scrunching in his metal fist.

As if suddenly remembering it was there, he looked at the paper before unfolding it and smoothing it flat against the wall. It didn't say much; only that Mustang wanted to see him. Now, apparently.

"What the hell does he want _now,_ " Ed mumbled, annoyed.

* * *

Al was waiting for him when he burst into Mustang's office. Ed was so surprised to see his brother there that the rant he'd been building up ever since leaving the police station died on his tongue.

"Al! What are you doing here?"

"The Colonel called me and asked me to come," answered Al excitedly.

Ed's amber eyes turned suspiciously to the dark haired man sitting at the large desk and he frowned. "So what was _so important_ that you had to send a soldier to come find me? He _saluted_ me, you know. I hate that!" whined the teen.

Mustang looked like he was resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "Of course he saluted you. He's supposed to," he said flatly. He rested his chin on his linked fingers and smirked at the younger alchemist. "How is your work going, by the way?"

Ed scowled at him. "Like cold molasses! All I do is stare at coins all day. And some of them are real jerks," he added moodily.

Mustang raised an eyebrow. "The coins?" he asked, amused.

"No, the people!" snapped the teen before adding, "smart ass."

"Ed is helping them analyze the make-up of the fake money," Al told Mustang, watching the exchange uncomfortably.

"Sounds riveting," said Mustang with that ever-present smirk.

"It sucks!" exclaimed Ed, throwing his hands up in the air for emphasis.

Mustang just watched with dispassion. "Moving on to more pressing matters," he interjected before Ed could start ranting, "I have a lead for you." Ed watched with a spark of hope as the Colonel pulled a paper from the top drawer of his desk.

The older man considered the sheet for a moment saying, "It's time sensitive, unfortunately. The man I want you to talk to is leaving for Creta in two days." Mustang held the paper out and Ed made a move to take it.

"But since you're already busy," Mustang continued, offering the paper to Al instead, "I thought maybe Alphonse could look into it."

Al was startled by this, his armor clinking with the sudden jerk of his surprise. Ed, too, was surprised. The brothers looked at each other for a moment, then at Mustang.

"Alone?"

Mustang gave the younger Elric a reassuring smile. "If you take the first train in the morning, you can catch him before he leaves," he said.

"What are you scheming?" demanded Ed.

Mustang just shook his head innocently and shrugged. "Nothing. I said I'd get you leads. This man is a professor and an archeologist and has done extensive research into the ancient Xerxes civilization."

Ed raised his eyebrow skeptically. "How's an archeologist gonna help us with alchemy?"

"He's published several books about alchemy too," remarked Mustang. "But he's only in Amestris for a brief visit. Unfortunately, I can't justify sending a State Alchemist just to talk to a professor. That's why I think it would be best if Alphonse went," he said, turning his dark eyes on the towering suit of armor.

Despite his imposing size, Al gave away his true age by his mannerisms. He hung his head shyly. "I've never taken the train alone before. How far is it?" he asked his feet.

"Central. His name is Dr. Charles Beckner, he's a visiting professor at Central University."

Al took the sheet from Mustang and turned to his brother. "What do you think Ed?"

Ed thought about it with a slight frown. "They say the people of Xerxes were excellent alchemists. Maybe we _could_ learn a thing or two from this guy. Although," he added, his eyebrows drawing together in concern, "I don't really like the thought of you going on your own."

"It can't be that hard!" said Al, getting excited at the first real adventure he'd be taking on his own. "You know, you're not much older than me brother. And people treat me like an adult anyway. Beside, _I'm_ the one who always has to buy our tickets."

Mustang raised an eyebrow at this, amused. Ed chose to ignore him.

"Fine!" relented the older Elric. "But come straight back. Don't talk to strange people. And call me when you get there."

"You're such a caring older brother, Fullmetal," remarked Mustang, leaning back in his chair and watching the exchange with amusement.

"Shut up!" retorted the teen.

"Why are you always so rude, Ed," admonished the younger Elric almost instantly.

Ed glared at Mustang as a thought suddenly struck him. "If you were planning on giving this to Al from the start, why the hell did you _summon_ me for?"

Ed could just imagine the smart ass replies that were going through Mustang's head.

 _Because I know how much you hate being summoned._

 _Because I knew sending a Private to get you would piss you off._

 _Because I wanted to see and relish in the misery I put you in._

But Mustang just stared at him thoughtfully. "Don't you want to know when I'm sending your little brother to Central by himself to meet a complete stranger?" he asked simply. "Besides, this concerns you too, even if you're not going."

Ed struggled between admitting that the Colonel was right and insulting him.

Before he could make up his mind, Mustang waved an impatient hand at them, shooing them towards the door. "Now, if you'll kindly get lost, I have work to do."

"You? Work? As if," scoffed Ed. "C'mon Al, I sure as hell don't wanna stick around while he calls his girlfriend."

"Speaking of girlfriends," called Mustang as the young alchemists made their way to the door, "I really ought to thank you, Fullmetal. It seems that my chances with Jenny just got better."

Ed frowned suspiciously at the smirk on the older man's face. "The hell are on about?"

"Oh, Jean's sweetheart Jenny MacKay," he said airily, "a fine lady, and very talented too. Of course, she'll probably dump him after he makes a fool of himself in front of a full auditorium. I heard he asked you to teach him and that you shot down his desperate plea for help."

Ed made the connection from the other day and rolled his eyes. He made several starts like he couldn't decide on how to respond to that. Finally he settled on astonished sarcasm. "Did everyone miss the part about me being _dismembered_?" he said acidly.

"If you mean how pathetic you looked the day we met? Trust me, I'll be remembering that for a long time," replied Mustang smoothly.

Ed glared at him. "Fuck you."

" _Brother!-_ "

Ed shot his little brother a dark look for the reprimand but said nothing and turned to leave.

Again, Mustang called to him. "I have to admit, Edward, I didn't think you had it in you to be so cruel," he said.

"I'm not cruel!" snapped the teen instantly, whirling back around.

"I told Breda you couldn't do it," continued Mustang loftily, "but he seems to be under the impression that your apparent genius knows no bounds." He smirked at the teen's rising temper. "So we bet on it. Thanks to you, I'm looking to gain a pretty girlfriend _and_ five hundred cenz."

"You _bet_ on me?!" Ed shrieked.

Mustang shrugged casually, leaning forward with his elbows on the desk, enjoying himself immensely. "No, I bet _against_ you. As if you can actually _play_ anything let alone _teach_ someone else," he scoffed.

"You're such an ass!" retorted the teen, "what the hell do you know!" Al could see that his brother was pissed and looked from one State Alchemist to the other following the exchange warily. Ed always lost his temper with Mustang.

"I like to think I know you pretty well actually," replied the older man smoothly. And Al agreed that there was more truth to that than Ed would ever know.

Ed drew himself up and stalked into the outer office where the rest of Mustang's staff worked on steadily. They had gotten really good at listening while _not_ listening to the shouting matches.

"Havoc!" barked the teen, pointing in the man's direction and making him jump. "I swear you're gonna play that thing like a pro by the time I'm done with you or I'll kill you! No way in hell am I gonna let Mustang bet against me and win!" he shouted.

Before Havoc could wipe the astonished look from his face, Ed had stalked back into Mustang's office and planted himself in the doorway. "You don't know shit!" he proclaimed before whirling away without waiting for Al and slamming doors behind him.

In the quiet wake of this spectacle, the staff exchanged confused glances. Havoc was both ecstatic and worried for his life. Hawkeye looked into the Colonel's office with a frown touched with amusement (which was something only she could manage).

Al turned to the older alchemist and sighed, always embarrassed by his brother's outbursts.

"There was no bet, was there," he said flatly.

Mustang's smirk only widened. "Honestly, Alphonse. I wonder sometimes, which one of you is actually the genius," he said wryly.

Yes, Mustang knew Edward Elric very well.

* * *

 **A/N:**

1) _You can't strap a cat worth two shots in a pond_. Speaking as someone who married into a different culture, I can tell you that though the expression is made up, the confusion caused by such expressions (that often make little sense to outsiders) is very real.

2)Being a State Alchemist does not make you a Major automatically. They hold rank _equal_ to Major, but Ed was never trained as a soldier and shouldn't be called "Major" unless he's earned it. My personal take on the system, of course.

3)Cold Molasses _is_ a real expression. It means slow.

4)Mustang is a jerk, but we love him anyway. And he sure knows how to push Ed's buttons. :D

5)Thank you! Thank You! Thank You! For everyone who reviewed, makes my day! ^_^


	4. Music Lessons

"So….," Jean Havoc hung awkwardly in the doorway of his tiny apartment kitchen eyeing the teen currently occupying his equally tiny couch. He was not used to entertaining and it didn't help that the kid made it more awkward than it needed to be. It was clear that Edward didn't really want to be here but for reasons Havoc could only imagine, here was the Fullmetal Alchemist, sitting on his threadbare old couch eyeing the room with open concern.

"Can I get you anything? A beer?" asked the older man.

Edward's eyes snapped from his sad excuse of a bookshelf to him in disbelief. His brows drew together and he looked around surreptitiously to make sure Havoc was really asking him. "I'm thirteen," he said petulantly, as if this should have been obvious.

Havoc thought about this for a short second before shrugging. "So? There's a first time for everything. Want a smoke?" he asked with a crooked grin.

The teen just rolled his eyes and shook his head. "No, thanks," he said, his eyes scanning the crowded space and lingering with distaste on the overflowing ashtray balanced on the couch's armrest.

Havoc shrugged and retreated into the kitchen to get himself something to drink. He pulled a beer from his refrigerator, looked at it for a moment then changed his mind, putting it back, and made a pot of coffee instead. He _knew_ Ed drank coffee, even though that was just as unusual for a thirteen year old to drink.

He had just shown up on his doorstep after dinner, alone. Havoc was so surprised to see him there that he had just stared at the teen until Ed asked, sardonically, if he was going to teach the man how to play right there on the doorstep. Al wasn't with him, which was odd in itself because the two seemed inseparable sometimes. He had, apparently, caught the night train to Central instead of leaving in the morning since he didn't need to sleep.

Havoc somehow suspected that, with Al gone, Ed was either worried about his little brother, too fidgety to stay in his hotel room by himself, lonely or all of the above.

After Ed had shouted at him in the office, Havoc had been hopeful. But then the more he thought about it, the more he had convinced himself that the kid would probably never _actually_ get around to teaching him once his anger at the Colonel had abated.

As it was, he was still getting over the fact that the Fullmetal Alchemist had talents other than alchemy and pissing off authority figures. He just couldn't picture it, no matter how hard he tried. But the memory of the teen holding the instrument in the office that day spoke volumes.

A whine from the living room interrupted his thoughts. "What are you doing in there? Where's your music?"

Havoc returned to the living room with two steaming mugs of coffee and set one down on the uneven table in front of Ed. The teen eyed the mug but said nothing as he scooped it up and Havoc settled into his favorite armchair.

"My what?" he asked blankly, a cigarette halfway to his mouth.

Ed raised an eyebrow at him. "Your music? You know, your sheets?" he repeated with expectation.

At Havoc's continued blank expression, the teen sighed. "The thing you're supposed to be learning written out on paper. Your music sheets!" he said impatiently.

 _Oh!_ He shuffled over to his book case and pulled out a battered binder with papers sticking out haphazardly from it in all directions. He was aware of Ed watching him and didn't miss the teen's shudder at the condition of the book.

He wasn't normally _this_ bad with his things, but the last time he'd tried to make sense of the lines and symbols he'd gotten so frustrated with it that he'd crammed the lot back onto the shelf without giving a damn about it.

Ed's expression was priceless as Havoc laid the mess of battered papers in front of him. As if it was a sin to treat books this badly.

The loose cover was sticky with something Havoc couldn't remember eating and Ed flipped it open while simultaneously trying not to touch it.

"Is this it?" asked the blond teen scooping up a pile of crumpled and stained pages. Havoc nodded a little hopelessly and Ed started shuffling through the papers, which were not in any sort of order, straightening them as he went. He leaned over the pages, focused on the lines and symbols.

After a moment, Ed's amber eyes slid slowly up to consider the man sitting in the armchair across from him critically. "This is Sarkhoff," he stated flatly.

Havoc recognized the name as the composer from the papers but he shrugged because it honestly didn't mean much to him.

" _This_ is what you're supposed to play?" asked Ed incredulously, riffling through the papers. He snorted and raised an eyebrow at Havoc's half-hearted shrug. "Can you even read music?" continued the teen, studying the man skeptically.

"No."

"Do you know what this piece is supposed to sound like?" the quiz continued.

"Uh, I heard it one time, I think."

Ed sighed in exasperation. "Do you have _any_ experience playing?" he asked impatiently.

Again Havoc shrugged and shook his head. He started though, as a memory occurred to him. "Well, sort of. My grandfather used to play. It's his violin, actually. I got it after he died. He used to let me saw away at it but it never did sound like he made it sound." His eyes wandered to the window as he lost himself for a moment in the memory of his grandpa; the smell of his pipe, his scratchy beard and always a tune on his breath.

"Do you have it here?" asked Ed.

Havoc jumped up from his seat and went to fetch it. The case was old and worn but still strong. He set it on the low table in front of Ed and undid the worn latches. The inside of the case was lined with faded blue velvet with the initials R.P.H still stamped in the inside of the lid, his grandfather's initials.

The instrument itself lay there innocently and Havoc couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt, thinking of his Grandpa who had loved it so much and knowing that it had been somewhat neglected since the old man's death.

Ed picked it up carefully, feeling its weight and examining the strings. He had a thoughtful expression on his face before it soured into a grimace. He looked Havoc in the eye and the older man inwardly flinched under the scrutiny of those amber eyes.

"Let me get this straight," he started, resting the instrument on his knees, "you expect to learn a piece by Sarkoff in what, when's the concert?"

"Two weeks," supplied Havoc humbly. Ed's eyebrows shot up in astonishment but he continued.

"In _two weeks_ , when you don't know how to play, can't read the music, and don't even know what it's supposed to sound like?" The teen raised an eyebrow at him, unimpressed.

"It didn't sound all that hard…," Havoc trailed off.

Ed laid the instrument back in its case and dropped the sheets on top. "I think you might as well tell this Jane girl the truth now because if she's an _actual_ musician, you won't be able to fake it, trust me."

"Her name's Jenny. She's a goddess," he mused, a goofy smile creeping onto his face, his cigarette dangling at the corner of his mouth.

Ed picked up the pamphlet for the show, which had been mixed in with the papers and examined it with distaste. "Yeah well, goddess or not, she'll know you're a fraud the minute you show up to a _classical string concerto_ with a beat up old fiddle," he said sardonically, tossing the colourful paper on top of the pile.

The older man sighed in defeat. "You really don't think I can do this?"

Ed raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you want me to be honest or nice?" he countered evenly.

Havoc knew the alchemist _was_ being nice, if he offered a choice which is more than what he gave most people. There was a long moment of awkward silence before Ed sighed.

"Even I couldn't play Sarkoff properly, he's notoriously difficult," offered the teen as a sort of consolation.

"Yeah, Al mentioned you had lessons?" asked Havoc thinking that if someone who _could_ play thought this piece was difficult, then there was no way in hell he could do it.

Ed huffed, crossing his arms and silently cursing Al for the betrayal. "Yeah, and I hated it. My teacher was a tyrant. Everything had to be _perfect_ , she never let me just," he threw his hands out in front of him, the gesture meant to replace words, "-play. She was a stuck up old _hag_ ," he finished moodily and with quite a bit of repressed bitterness.

Havoc was surprised; it was unlike Ed to be so open.

The teen looked at him seriously. "You really want to do this?" he asked, like a last chance to back out.

Havoc was determined. "Yes," he said with certainty.

Ed shrugged muttering "your funeral" as he closed the lid on the instrument, setting it down on the floor, and spread the papers over the table.

"So this here," he said, pointing to a squiggly symbol at the top of the page, "is called the treble clef…."

For four hours, Ed explained to Havoc how to read the music. It was a lot to take in and the man was impressed that even after so long, the teen was still so focused. He, on the other hand, despite his third cup of coffee and almost a whole pack of cigarettes, was starting to feel his brain melt. Most of the terminology was new to him, and although he thought he had the gist of it, he had seriously underestimated how intricate it all was.

But he did start to see how well something like music suited the young alchemist. As Ed had explained to him, music was essentially mathematics. Behind the time, rhythm and form were rules, equations and laws and his music lesson was suddenly starting to sound a lot more like alchemy.

And Havoc was _not_ an alchemist.

He had stopped paying attention ten minutes ago, and realized that he was staring at the young man in a small amount of awe and amusement at how easily Ed managed fit alchemy into _anything_.

The teen looked up at him, frowning. "What are you smirking about?" he said suspiciously, probably wondering what Havoc found so amusing about a _Sull'arco_ , whatever that was.

Havoc shook himself and glanced at the clock in the corner. It was twenty minutes to midnight and he let out a groan. He still had to _work_ in the morning.

"Let's call it a night Chief," he said around a yawn, rubbing a hand over his tired face.

Ed looked around at the clock too, genuinely surprised that so much time had passed. He was wide awake and Havoc wondered if the kid actually slept at night. If he didn't, it certainly would explain why he was often found, much to the Colonel's annoyance, sprawled on the couch in Mustang's office, dead to the world.

"C'mon, I'll walk you back to the hotel," offered the older man. Edward gave him a _look_ that said he didn't need an escort.

This was probably true.

But Havoc went anyway. There was just something that didn't sit well with him about letting the young man walk through the streets of East City alone in the middle of the night, State Alchemist or not. Havoc's passive forcefulness on the issue proved difficult for Ed to refuse.

It was a fifteen minute walk and the cool air was refreshing.

"So when am I going to actually play anything?" he asked the teen as they rounded the corner of Douglas and Fourth streets and the hotel came into view.

Ed shrugged impassively. "It's your fiddle. You can practice any time you want. But I'm going to teach you the _theory_ first," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Havoc rather thought he didn't have _time_ to learn all the theory behind the music and just wished Ed would show him where to put his fingers when and how to make the strings and bow sound like something other than a dying animal. But something told him he should count his luck that the young alchemist was willing to teach him anything at all. He frowned though, at Ed's comment.

"Why do you keep calling it a fiddle?" he asked curiously.

The teen looked up to the hotel which was directly across the street from where they now stood. He shrugged again. "It's just what we called it back home," he said simply.

Havoc's brows drew together in confusion. "Is there a difference? I told Jenny I played the violin," he said, a sudden panic swelling up inside him that he would show up with the wrong instrument.

Edward laughed.

It was a rare sound, Havoc had to admit. But the effect suited the young man much better than the scowl he always wore. And better still than the sorrow that plagued him far too often for someone his age.

The teen grinned at him then. "Those musicians you're going to play with are all probably professionally trained. They'll come with their shiny, _expensive_ violins and lord it up on stage in front of a quiet audience, following some master composer's work _exactly_ as it's written, down to the last note.

But a man walks up to a rag-tag band in someone's backyard and plays his old, loved fiddle for his friends and neighbors while they dance and sing late into the night, probably making it up as he goes. No one cares if he makes a mistake or joins in the dance with them while he plays." Ed shrugged a little turning his amber eyes on the older man, hands in his pockets looking to all the world like a humble teenaged boy for once, instead of a human weapon.

"You see, it's the style of the music that makes the difference; the instrument itself is the same."

Havoc stared at the young man. "Huh," was all he managed to say. His brain was too tired to respond more intelligently to that insightful answer. But he understood completely. He had fond memories of falling asleep beside his brother and sister atop hay bales while their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends danced and sang through the clear summer evenings on his grandpa's farm. His Grandpa had been a fiddler.

"So which are you?" he asked, amused. "A violinist or a fiddler?"

The teen grinned at him in such a familiar _Elric_ way, letting the question hang unanswered. Havoc knew he wasn't going to get an answer.

That grin said _I'm not telling_.

"Good night," he said enigmatically instead, waving lazily as he left the older man standing on the sidewalk and crossed the street.

Havoc turned and started walking back to his apartment. He knew Edward had been trained professionally. But he rather suspected, judging by the boy's dislike for following rules and his sometimes alarming creativity, that he preferred the improvised and more liberating style of a fiddler.

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you for all the reviews and favs! I never expected this to be so well liked. ^_^


	5. Three Days

It became a routine.

Ed would spend his days holed up in the evidence warehouse analysing coins, go back to the hotel to have dinner, alone, then spend his evenings trying not to strangle Second Lieutenant Havoc. He discovered that he did not have the patience to be a good teacher.

He didn't understand how Havoc could have so much difficulty learning something that came so easily to himself. He got impatient and frustrated but then he saw how hard the man was working to learn and didn't really have the heart to give up.

Al, he thought miserably, was always better with this sort of thing. Al was patient and kind and did not have difficulty showing empathy, or any emotions, to others. It added a level of cruelty for the gate to give Al an emotionless face when his brother had such a big heart.

He was more than a little worried and upset that Al had not called him from Central. Then he thought guiltily of all the times _he_ had promised to call someone and never did. Maybe Al had simply got distracted or lost track of time. Ed noticed that, because Al didn't have the need to eat and sleep, he sometimes lost sense of time.

He told himself to wait before panicking. But it had been three days and he hadn't heard from Al. He was worried. And being worried distracted him. He was so distracted on his way into the evidence warehouse, in fact, that he did not see the man before he walked full force into him.

Despite his age, Ed was quite solidly built with the added weight of his automail to help anchor him. But the man was a fully grown adult. They collided with just about equal force, spilling the man's coffee over the both of them.

"Woah-,"

"Watch it! Oh it's you." Detective Hartley eyed him with dislike as he tried in vain to wipe the coffee from the front of his uniform. "Watch where you're going, _Sir_ ," he practically spat, tacking on the last part with a mocking snarl.

Ed returned the look with equal dislike, not truly bothered by the lack of military respect, since he had never asked for it to begin with. "Same to you, detective," he said, shaking the coffee off his now stained gloves. He eyed the man's shirt and tie, which seemed to have absorbed most of the coffee, though his own clothes had not been completely spared.

He pressed his hands together and touched his clothes, lifting the coffee from the fabric of his red coat and gloves easily. He had washed his clothes this way since leaving Resembool and it was a familiar transmutation. As the light of the transmutation faded, he caught a glimpse of a look of surprise on the older man's face, but it quickly vanished.

He smirked cockily at the man, which was met with a scowl. "Sorry about your uniform," he added without any sign of remorse.

Detective Hartley glared murderously at him, his face showing signs of redness from his supressed fury. Ed thought, amused, that the man should be careful about his blood pressure but chose, in a moment of rare wisdom, to keep that to himself.

"You think you're so smart, don't you," the man sneered. "You think you're just better than everyone else-,"

"I never said that-,"

"-that just because you got your _licence_ , it makes you a goddamned expert all of a sudden. Well you're not! You're just a naïve little punk with a few tricks to impress the Brass."

Ed frowned at this. He never considered himself to be an _expert_ but he _knew_ he and Al's skills, when it came to alchemy, _were_ better than average. And he sure as hell had _earned_ his licence, just like everyone else.

"Are you questioning my credentials, Detective?" he asked with a dangerous edge to his voice. There was a fire in his amber eyes.

"The fact that they even let a little kid become a State Alchemist is ridiculous! What are you, ten?"

"I'm thirteen dammit!"

"Whatever, you-,"

"What's going on?" Sean appeared in the doorway behind Ed, taking in the spilled coffee, the stain on the front of Detective Hartley's uniform and the way the two of them were glaring daggers at each other. He gave the older man a cold look as he stepped forward to stand beside Ed. "Is there a problem, Ben?"

It took half a second for Ed to realize that he was speaking to Scruffy. Apparently, his name was Ben, who knew.

Detective Hartley glared at Sean, too. Ed wondered if there was anyone this man actually _liked._

There was a long tense moment where the two of them glowered at each other, waging some silent battle with a history Ed did not understand until Detective Hartley scoffed. "Of course not," he said with his usual gruffness. Ed figured that Detective Hartley didn't care about showing disrespect to Ed when they were alone, but Sean might report him to the Commissioner. Apparently he valued his job more than whatever issue he had with Ed being a State Alchemist.

"You do realize that being a State Alchemist isn't all rainbows and sunshine, right?" he jeered at Ed. He shrugged his shoulders as he made his way passed them to the door, probably on his way to the washroom to try and save his uniform. "But what do I care if you get yourself killed playing the hero."

Before he disappeared completely, he turned back, his eyes resting on Sean briefly as he continued to address Ed. "But I'd watch my back if I were you, kid," he said, and he left.

The two remaining alchemists looked at the empty doorway for a long second after the man had gone.

"Well that was pleasant," remarked Sean with his usual cheerfulness.

"What a jerk! What the hell is his problem, anyway?" Ed seethed.

"Don't listen to him, he's probably just jealous," said Sean shrugging. "You know, he failed the State Licence examination three times," he added.

"What!? That man's an alchemist?" Ed stared out the empty doorway as if the man was still there. He was not surprised by the fact that Detective Hartley had failed the test. A lot of people tried, and failed, to get their State licences every year. It was excruciatingly difficult. In fact, Ed was sure that without the knowledge from the Gate, he would not have been able to pass it as easily as he had. _Still, though,_ thought a smug part of himself, _I scored among the highest the year I took it_. This was not common knowledge though, and most people were simply impressed by the fact that he had passed it at all.

Sean made a face. "Lucky us, looks like we're stuck with him for today. He's not wrong though. I _would_ watch my back if I were you, I wouldn't put it past him to try something. He's slimy that way…"

"Yeah, well, he doesn't know what he's messing with" replied Ed dangerously. He wasn't afraid of Detective Hartley, even though the man did his best to intimidate him. He'd dealt with meaner and scarier people already. Still, now that he knew Scruffy was an alchemist, it _did_ bother him that he had no idea what he was capable of.

Mustang would know.

Colonel Mustang was a recruiter for the State Alchemy program and always seemed to know everybody's business when it came to alchemy. In fact, he always seemed to know everybody's business in general. Ed made a mental note to ask the Colonel next time he was in the office.

They made their way to the now familiar long table and settled down to work.

Half an hour later, Detective Hartley came back, wearing a clean shirt, and sat himself at the far end of the table without saying a word to either of them. Ed did not miss the dirty looks that were sent his way but he ignored them. He wasn't here to make friends although Sean and Anna were the only ones who had befriended him. In all honesty, he just wanted to get this job over with quickly so he could go back to focusing on what really mattered to him; the philosopher's stone.

Thinking of the stone made him think of Al again and he felt a pang of worry in the pit of his stomach. Where was he? The two of them had seen enough insane alchemists that it was not a far stretch for him to imagine his brother getting kidnapped by a mad professor of archeology.

He shook the thought out of his head. He would call the University tonight and ask around.

Ed realized that he'd been staring at the silver coated copper coin in his hand for a full three minutes without really seeing it. His thoughts were elsewhere and he lost his place in his book.

Growling in frustration, he crossed out his notations aggressively and had to review his notes again to find his place. It didn't help that his handwriting was a barely legible scrawl, something Mustang _loved_ to point out from Ed's reports. He made a face at the thought that no one seemed to appreciate the fact that he was, technically, ambidextrous. Edward was naturally right handed and had to learn, among plenty of other things, how to write with his left hand.

He sighed, reviewing his notes. It was the same monotonous pattern he'd been staring at for the last three days. Groaning, he let his head fall onto the open pages. "Remind me again why the hell are we doing this again?" he asked the crease in the center of his notebook.

Sean looked up at him then with a raised eyebrow.

"I mean, seriously, what's the point?" whined the teen.

"Didn't you go to the meeting?" asked Sean.

Ed did not want to admit that he had not been paying attention at the meeting. He _did_ read the report, though, now that he thought about it, he realized that he had not really been paying attention to _that_ either.

Sean shook his head in disbelief and chuckled. "You have a selective attention span, don't you? The _point_ is," he continued, amused, "that we have no idea where these coins are being manufactured and they're hoping that by analysing the raw material used to make them, they can pinpoint a location and finally get somewhere with this investigation."

It took a few seconds for this information to filter through Ed's tired brain. They didn't know? Hadn't he been staring at the same make-up of material for the last three days? It had been so obvious to Ed that he just figured they were looking for something else. Copper, iron and bismuth. They were the most abundant metals found in the rocks in this very area. Ed didn't need to be a geologist to know that.

He was an alchemist. And he was very familiar with the rocks in this part of the country; they had been easy material to come by when he and Al had starting learning alchemy from their father's books.

It was obvious that the coins were created by alchemists, but not very good ones. And certainly not by someone who knew much about making fake money, not that he'd ever done it himself…

His head popped up from its place among the coins on the table and he looked at his friend seriously. "You're telling me that they have no idea where these coins are coming from?"

Sean gave a half frown while trying to keep the usual humor in his voice. "Yeah, that's why we're analysing them… did you think we were just doing this for fun?"

"Well it's obvious, isn't it?" said Ed, staring at him like he couldn't believe the other man could be so dense. When Sean didn't respond, Ed went on. "It's local. Probably a mine somewhere just outside of East City. This is the only place in Amestris where this material is as common as, well, dirt."

Sean shook his head. "The police already looked into and investigated all the mines in and around East City. They were all clean."

Ed frowned at this and looked around. His eyes scanned the back wall of the warehouse for the familiar map of the area. His stool made a squealing screech as he pushed it away from the table and jumped down. Sean watched him go and, sighing, put his own notebook down and followed the teen to the map pinned unceremoniously to the grimy wall.

Ed had to climb up onto the desk directly underneath the poster and balance on his knees in order to be at eye level with it. He scanned the dirty yellowed paper for a few long seconds before jabbing at a spot with a metal finger.

"There! There's an abandoned chalcopyrite mine there, I bet that's where it's coming from," he stated with confidence. It all started coming together in his head. East City had seen the most confiscated coinage in all of Amestris which meant two things. It was either being made here and sent elsewhere or made elsewhere and had to pass through East City to head east, maybe to Xing. But what use would Xing have with Amestrian money?

And the makeup of the coins proved that they were being made here, they had to be. An abandoned mine would be the perfect set-up for criminals to make fake money.

"And there's an access road for the railroad that cuts right through this land here," he continued, drawing the line with his finger, "it's secluded enough not to draw too much attention but well-kept because it's funded by the military."

Sean shuffled around in the map cabinet before pulling out an equally yellowed paper. It was a zoning map from the Department of Land Use. He found the location Ed had pointed to, a hilly area just outside of the city, and shook his head.

"There's no mine here. Even if it is abandoned, it would show up as industrial or mining," he said scanning the legend in the bottom right corner. He passed a thumb over the symbol of two crossed pickaxes that meant mining. There were none near the spot where Ed had pointed.

Ed smirked. "That's because it's private property, it was never registered as a real mine."

He knew this because he and Al had been there 7 months before for a completely different investigation.

Sean stared at him for almost a full minute.

"Well aren't you clever," he said finally. "You see? I was right. It only took you three days to-"

Ed snatched the map from his hands, jumped down from the table and walked away with purpose.

"Hey!" exclaimed Sean, "where are you going?"

Ed was halfway to the door, and he waved the map sheet in the air above his head.

"Solving your case!"

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **1.** Sorry for the delay, my internet connection has been spotty at best. I also needed time to plan and research for this and upcoming chapters.

 **2.** Thanks enormously for those of you reading this and even more so for those who took the time to review!

 **3.** Chalcopyrite (kal-ko-pie-right) is the most common mineral from which copper is extracted. :)


	6. Scars

"No."

Edward opened his mouth to protest but Commissioner Barnes held his hand up to stop him and went on.

"You said so yourself, Fullmetal, this is private property. We can't just go marching in there without any proof and -"

"I'm telling you-"

"-besides, there are proper protocols to follow," he finished, giving the teen a stern look for interrupting. Something told Ed this man was not used to being interrupted.

Ed stood in front of the man's large desk, even after Barnes had told him to have a seat, and frowned. After a long pause he shook his head in mild disgust.

"So you're just going to not do anything," he stated, clarifying the man's position.

Barnes shook his head in a patient and fatherly way. "Of course we are, we'll look into it. Just, not right away. We still have a lot of evidence to go through. Besides that," he looked over Ed's notebook briefly, "your notebook is the only one with this exact make-up of raw materials. It's just not substantial enough proof to go on."

At the nasty look Ed gave the old man, he continued. "Look, Fullmetal, we appreciate your enthusiasm and you have been a valuable asset to the team, but you were hired as an analyst. Let's leave the investigating to the investigations specialists, hm?"

Ed scowled. He knew when he was being patronized. The man's words basically translated to _when I want your opinion, I'll give it to you._ He was suddenly, and quite un-expectedly, grateful to Mustang for giving him and Al so much freedom to basically do as they please. He could have just as easily ended up under some other Colonel's authority and have to jump through these same bureaucratic hoops every time he wanted to so much as look at a book.

The commissioner was not even trying very hard to listen to what Ed was telling him. He was not being taken seriously. The respect he had for the man from their first meeting dwindled quickly.

"I hope you can understand where I'm coming from." said Barnes in a dismissive way, as if Ed couldn't be gone faster.

Ed crossed his arms. He was starting to understand very well but said nothing.

"Now then," continued Barnes, "was there something else you wanted to discuss with me?"

After a long pause, Ed said "No" through gritted teeth. What he really wanted was to punch this man in the face. How long had they been working on this case? Five months? And here was a solid lead and this _idiot_ would even look into it?

Sean was waiting in the hallway and pushed off from the wall when Ed emerged from the office.

"And?" he asked, but his tone showed that he already knew the answer.

Ed scowled. "Keep your head down, shut up and let the adults take care of things," he announced moodily. "What a load of crap! It's there, I know it!"

The other man shrugged. "Well it was worth a shot, but let's face it. It can't have been that easy."

"We could still at least check it out and _know_ it's not there." Ed was more annoyed with not being listened to than anything else.

Sean watched him quietly for a few seconds. "The Commissioner's right, Ed. It's really not up to us to decide these things."

Ed opened his mouth to protest but the man in question appeared in the doorway of his office and both Sean and Ed looked over.

"Officer Cann," he said, addressing Sean, "will you step into my office for a moment, I'd like to speak with you." He gave Ed an unreadable look before retreating into his office, leaving the door ajar for Sean to follow.

Sean raised his eyebrows in a dramatic way that said: _I'm in trouble now_ but still managed to infuse it with humor. It was probably not that serious.

"See you around, Fullmetal," he said, giving the teen a mock salute because he knew Ed didn't like it, and entered the office shutting the door behind him.

Ed did not loiter in the hallway. He was still seething a little but mostly annoyed. He made his way back to the warehouse and went back to work. Detective Hartley looked up when he sat down with a huff but said nothing and they both worked in silence.

After a while, Ed leaned back in his stool, stretching his back and shoulders. He was used to being more active with his days and the long hours of sitting and writing were taking their toll on him. He looked around at the chaotic mess that was their worktable and his eyes landed on Sean's work space. His notebook still lay opened among the sacks of coins but he had not returned yet.

Ed contemplated the book, with Sean's neat scrawl running across the pages and a few loose papers sticking out the side. Sean used pre-drawn transmutation circles which were efficient but not overly detailed. Actually, he realized, most of the other alchemists did the same. Ed, of course, didn't need to. But the Commissioner had said that his notes were the only ones with that specific make-up of materials. Ed frowned at this. How could that be possible, when they were all taking coins from the same pile?

Sean did not return for the rest of the day and at the end of the afternoon, after he had finished making his own notes legible enough, Ed handed in both his notebook and Sean's and left.

* * *

Colonel Mustang watched the Fullmetal Alchemist pace from one side of his office to the other as he listened to the teen explain to him how horrendously _terrible_ the investigation was being handled by the police department.

"How? How can my notes be different from the others? Are they that _terrible_ at alchemy? How can anyone mistake iron for _calcium?_ " Ed finished this statement with a well-aimed kick at the sofa's wooden leg. It was by no means the first dent put there by that metal foot.

Roy did not point out the possibility that Ed's notes were the ones that could be wrong. Ed had complete faith in his alchemy, and he had good reason to be. Roy would never admit it the seething young man standing in front of him, but Edward Elric was one of the best alchemists he's ever seen in action. His versatility was his strength. As much as Ed's notes _could_ be wrong, he very much doubted they were.

In the silence that followed Ed's rant, Roy asked a simply question. "Did you consider that maybe the notes, the evidence or both have been tampered with?"

Ed frowned without taking his eyes away from the abused sofa. "How?" And then after a second thought, "Why? What's there to gain from messing with coins?" he asked looking up at Mustang with a skeptical look.

"There's a lot of money at stake in this case," said the older man, leaning back in his chair thoughtfully. "The people making the counterfeit obviously want it for a reason. I think that the real question is what do they want the money for? This could be just a tiny bit of what's really out there and people will do terrible things for money."

Ed crossed his arms and bit his lower lip in thought. "If the evidence really was tampered with, it had to have been done by someone on the inside. The warehouse is pretty well guarded."

Roy took out a pencil and started jotting things down. "What about the notebooks? What do you do with them, at the end of the day?"

Ed started pacing again.

Roy really wished he would just sit down and be still.

"We hand them in to the supervisor," answered the teen from the other side of the office. Roy would not be surprised if the carpet in his office was worn down in the pattern Ed was now tracing with his feet and wondered if the young alchemist did this in the library when he was thinking.

"And you?" he asked sardonically knowing Ed rarely listened to instructions.

The teen picked up on the jibe. "I do!" he said indignantly. But his frown softened as something occurred to him. "But I re-write everything and hand in the nice copy," he pulled, from an inside pocket, a worn and well beaten journal, "so my original notes are all still here and that's what I've been looking at."

Mustang held his hand out to see the book and Ed tossed it to him from across the room. The older man made a face at the chicken scratch he was used to looking at and wondered why Ed took the time to carefully re-write everything when he usually took great pleasure in handing in a messy, illegible rat's nest he claimed was a report.

He nodded, flipping through page after page of chaotic alchemical notations. "So if someone was messing with the notes before they get looked over by the investigation team, it would explain why no one's made a connection before." He smirked, snapping the book shut. "I guess you're the first to have such bad handwriting."

"Bastard."

Roy let the insult roll over him as usual. "Did you notice anyone that might seem off to you? Maybe someone who might feel threatened by the presence of a State Alchemist?"

Ed finally stopped pacing and stood directly in front of Roy's desk looking serious. "As a matter of fact, yeah. Ben Hartley. He's a detective and he's been a pain in my ass since I started," he said, watching as Mustang took notes. "He's also an alchemist," he added with a significant look.

Roy nodded just as there was a knock on the office door and Hawkeye's head appeared in the opening. "Sergeant Weiss is here for his appointment, Sir," she said with a significant look at the clock on the wall above the sofa.

"Thank you Lieutenant, you can show him in," he said. She nodded and smiled at Ed before disappearing again.

Roy rose from his seat and walked around his desk, a clear signal for Ed to take his leave. "I'll look into this and let you know what I find," he said, holding the door open and handing the book back as Ed passed him. "In the meantime, try not to do anything stupid," he added which was met with a grin.

Ed shrugged. "Yeah, whatever," he said with a roll of his eyes as he left the office. He was almost to the outer office door when Mustang called out to him.

"Edward!"

Mustang rarely used the young alchemist's name and Ed caught the undertone of concern hidden behind the action. He turned, giving the man his equally rare, full attention.

"I mean it. Just be careful. We don't know who all the players are or what they're capable of. And people will do unspeakable things for money," he said.

Roy knew it made Ed uncomfortable whenever he showed the teen open concern. They both felt more familiar with the usual banter, the insults and the blatant lack of military protocol. Ed was now watching him with an unreadable expression, probably uncomfortably aware that the rest of the team was also watching the exchange.

"Yeah, sure," he said quietly before leaving, closing the door gently behind him.

It was only after Roy had made his way back to his seat behind his desk that it occurred to him. That was probably the first time the Fullmetal Alchemist had left the office without slamming doors behind him.

* * *

"Mr. Elric!"

Ed walked right by without looking up from his book.

"Excuse me, Mr. Elric?"

The man touched his shoulder, which made him start a little and he fixed his wide amber eyes on the Concierge who had come around the large marble desk to get his attention.

"My apologies, Mr. Elric," he said, sounding very much sorry for troubling the young man, "you have a phone call."

Edward's eyebrows shot up in surprise and he just stared at the man.

"From a Mr. Alphonse?" the man continued.

"Oh!"

He followed the man behind the reception desk to a small private room where he was handed an expensive looking receiver and left alone.

"Al? Where have you been?" he asked right away without any of the usual formalities.

Al's voice came through the speaker of the telephone high and a bit scratchy but with its usual resonating echo.

"Where have I been? Where have you been! I've been trying to call you for two days!" answered his brother with a touch of exasperation.

Ed realized that Al didn't know about his evening music lessons with Havoc since they had started after Al had left for Central. Ed had decided on a bit of a whim to visit Havoc so the brothers had never discussed it.

"I've been calling your room but you're never there! You're not sleeping in the library again, are you?"

Ed chuckled. He was known for not making it to his bed at night, instead falling asleep while reading. "No. I, uh, I've sorta been helping Havoc with his music stuff," he admitted knowing he couldn't really lie to his little brother.

There was a pause over the line. "Really?" Al sounded astonished. "That's- That's very kind of you," he said sincerely.

Ed shrugged even though his brother could not possible see it. "Whatever. What about you? Are you still in Central?"

"Yeah."

"Is this professor guy _that_ interesting or what?"

It was Al's turn to chuckle. "I wouldn't know," he said with what was probably an accompanying shrug. "I never met the man."

Ed frowned at this.

"It seems," continued Al when Ed said nothing, "that the Colonel got the professor's visiting dates wrong so he was already gone by the time I got here."

 _Well that's odd_ , thought Ed, _Mustang doesn't usually get this sort of thing wrong._

"Anyway, the Head of the History Department felt so bad that he gave me permission to use the University's library for my research."

Ed smiled at the excitement in his brother's voice. "So since I came here to learn about Xerxes, I decided to do some reading on that," continued the younger Elric.

"And? Did you find out anything interesting?" asked Ed. There was a bit of an ache in his throat and he realized that he missed his little brother's presence. This really was one of the first times that they had spent so long apart and so far away.

"Well," said Al. There was a hesitation in his voice and Ed knew, because he knew his brother so well, that Al was about to bring up something that Ed wouldn't like. "I found the language really fascinating," he went on.

Ed waited for it.

"We've seen it before." Again another pause. "A lot of Dad's books were written in Xerxian."

There it was. _Dad_. Al knew his brother wanted nothing to do with their father.

 _Hohenheim_.

So the man studied Xerxes, big deal. Ed knew which books Al was referring to. They had never been of any use to them since they were written in a language the boys couldn't understand. He had clear memories of his father sitting at his desk in the study with those very same books around him. Many of them, now that he thought about it, were hand-written. Ed supposed that meant Hohenheim could read and write Xerxian too, but what was the point?

"I think he just did that so that there were less chances of random people reading his notes," he told Al.

"Well maybe," said Al, "but I still think it's impressive to know a dead language like that! Where do you suppose he learned it?"

Ed knew that Al yearned to meet their father but Ed would be just as happy if their paths never crossed.

"I don't really give a damn," replied the elder brother, a little too aggressively. Just thinking about Hohenheim was making him angry. But Al understood and after a hesitating moment, he changed the subject.

"I think I'm going to stay in Central for another couple of days," he said, rather subdued. "I mean, as long as you're busy with the police thing, I don't have access to the military library so I'm being more productive here."

"Have you read anything that might hint towards the stone?" Ed leaned his chair back on two legs and switched the receiver to his other ear. His stomach gave a loud grumble in protest to the delay of dinner.

"No," came the echoing voice over the line, "but I'll keep digging."

Ed nodded, even though Al couldn't see it. "Alright, well let me know if you find anything. I'm starving though, so I'm gonna go eat something." His stomach affirmed this statement by giving another loud grumble.

Al chuckled. "I heard that!"

"I told you! I'm starving! It's grub time!"

"Alright, well I know better than to keep you from food. I'll see you in a couple days. Bye Ed!"

"See ya Al."

They hung up at the same time and Ed let the chair fall back on all fours, replacing the receiver on its cradle carefully.

As he sat in the dining lounge devouring his cottage pie, Ed's mind kept going back to Hohenheim and Xerxes. There was much about the man that Ed didn`t know. Where _had_ he learned such a thing?

And then a memory came to him.

It was a winter night and the whole family, except Hohenheim, was down with the flu. Mom, who usually took care of the boys when they were sick, was sick in bed herself so the responsibility had fallen on their father.

Their father who rarely hugged or kissed them. Their father who always seemed so distant and cold. Ed remembered, albeit fuzzy with fever, the man carrying him to his bed, tucking him in and wiping his sweaty forehead with a cool cloth.

And he remembered the only time he ever heard his father sing. He supposed it was a lullaby of some sort. It was soft and calm and helped lull the boy to sleep. But he remembered the language. It was not in a language Ed knew.

Maybe Hohenheim really did know Xerxian well, if he could speak it too.

There really was a lot about the man Ed didn't know. Too much.

He supposed, picking around the vegetables on his plate, that he never would know.

Didn't want to know.

Not really.

At least that's what he told himself.

* * *

"Hold it higher."

Havoc stopped mid note and stared at the young man with a pained expression. It was the fifth time Ed had interrupted him. Between that and the sweltering heat of his apartment, compliments of a broken thermostat, Havoc was ready to give it up for the night out of irritation and frustration.

"It should rest on your collarbone, up here." The young alchemist pointed to his own shoulder in the right spot and held his arm up in imitation of holding a real instrument.

"That's what I was doing!" whined the older man. His sleeveless shirt was soaked and he could feel sweat beading on his forehead.

Even Edward had removed his red coat and peeled himself out of his long-sleeve black jacket, exposing both his left and automail arm. Having the windows thrown wide open in the cool spring night did nothing.

"No, you were holding it lower, with your back all scrunched up like, here, give me that," the teen reached for the instrument and Havoc relinquished it without protest. Ed placed the butt of the violin against his left breast, near his armpit and bent over it in what Havoc guessed was supposed to be an imitation of his bad playing posture.

"You were playing it like this. I've told you already, you're supposed to keep your back straight and your shoulders relaxed and the stings should be parallel with the floor. You see? Like this," he said, resting the instrument gently on his collarbone and lifting the bow to the strings. For a second, Havoc thought Ed was actually going to play something, but he just mimicked the action without ever making a sound. The teen made it look so easy and natural whereas he felt silly holding the position. But Havoc did not fail to notice how awkwardly Ed held the bow in his metal fingers. He realized at that moment that though he _knew_ Ed carried automail, he rarely saw it. The teen kept the metal hidden beneath red cloth and gloves. "And you're holding it too tightly," continued Ed, oblivious to Havoc's inner thoughts, "it's not like it's going to fly away or anything. At least not if you're holding properly."

Havoc sighed. There was so much to learn! And Edward Elric was a harsh teacher. He reluctantly took the instrument back and practiced the proper posture. He supposed he looked like a professional when he did it right, though the effect was slightly ruined by the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth and his sweaty hair flattened against his forehead. Ed guided him by holding his own left arm out with an invisible violin cradled there. And Havoc's attention was now drawn to the teen's _other_ arm. The one people paid less attention to.

He stared.

Edward's forearm, from the crook of his elbow to his wrist and the back of his hand was mottled with scars. They weren't terrible or ugly and they didn't visibly snake their way across his skin the way the scars decorating his right shoulder did. But there were so many he couldn't believe it.

He didn't really mean to stare but he couldn't look away.

Ed noticed what he was looking at and brought his arm down, looking away. If Havoc didn't know him and his circumstances, he would have guessed the teen to be some sort of drug addict. For the scars decorating the young alchemist's arm were from needles.

Lots and lots of needles.

After an uncomfortable silence, Havoc coughed around his cigarette. "Sorry man, I didn't mean to stare. It's just that I've never noticed those before," he offered sheepishly.

Ed said nothing for a long few seconds before sighing himself and shrugging his shoulders. He rubbed at his arm involuntarily and gave a half shudder. "From the surgery," he supplied simply.

The automail surgery, Havoc elaborated in his mind.

He remembered the first time Ed had been admitted to the hospital after returning from an assignment. How could he forget? The Colonel had complained loudly about it to his staff, just as much as Ed had complained loudly about it to the Colonel. It became quickly well known that the Fullmetal Alchemist was a terrible patient.

And it had started with a needle.

The nurse wanted to give him fluids through an IV. Edward refused spectacularly. It took four nurses, two doctors and hospital security to get him under control long enough for someone to sedate him.

Mustang complained about all the paperwork Ed had caused him and threatened to send the teen for a psychological evaluation and anger management workshops. Ed complained that he never needed to go to the hospital in the first place and that everyone would be better off if they just left him the fuck alone, which earned him office cleaning duties for a week from a less than impressed Hawkeye.

The entire time Breda and Havoc laughed at Edward's fear of needles. They teased him about it too which he took with his usual explosive violence.

But Havoc had never noticed the scars before now.

He didn't know much about automail surgery. Only that it was a painful and long process before, during and after the installation of a new limb. And this kid had two of them. He also knew that recovery and rehabilitation was supposed to take something like three to four years and that by all accounts, Ed shouldn't even be here. It was no wonder they still looked so vivid; they were not very old.

Now he just felt like an ass for teasing the kid.

Ed saved him from having to say anything by sitting up straighter on the couch. "Whatever, it's over now. So are you going to play something or what," he asked, brushing his own sweaty bangs from his face as easily as he brushed passed the subject.

Havoc nodded with determination and rested the instrument on his collarbone like he had been shown. At Ed's approving nod, he brought the bow up and started the piece from the beginning.

It was slow going and he didn't miss Ed's winces whenever the strings squeaked but he managed to make it all the way through this time, more or less successfully, in his opinion, and without interruption.

Ed nodded his head with a pained smile. "Well…you've improved, anyway," he offered.

"I'll take that as a compliment," said Havoc loftily, jabbing at Ed with the tip if his bow. Ed dodged it easily, batting it away.

He swiped his good hand through his sticky bangs and let out a huff of exasperation. "Ugh, this place is horrible. It's like a thousand degrees in here!" he whined, fanning himself with the front of his black shirt.

"Yeah, about that," said Havoc, eyeing the opened windows as if that might let more cool air in. "It's not just my place, the whole building is like this. I'm told Maintenance is working on it but," he shrugged, rolling his eyes, "who knows."

"Well I've had just about as much as I can take. I need fresh air." The blond teen swivelled on the couch to see the clock behind him. It was almost midnight, as usual. "I should get going anyway, before your neighbors call in a noise complaint again."

"Hey, it was _one_ time! And I wasn't even being that loud!" protested Havoc, carefully stowing the instrument in its case and slipping his shoes on.

Ed peeled himself off the couch and struggled back into his sticky jacket. He had stopped trying to refuse Havoc's company for the walk back to the hotel and instead just let the older man trail along beside him. This had become part of the routine too. They walked in a comfortable silence since neither one of them was overly chatty.

The walk was refreshing and the streets were quiet save for the few patrons stumbling out of the pubs on Main street. It was nearly midnight and Jean and Ed stood, as usual on the sidewalk across the street from the hotel. Ed had his hands in his pockets, as usual. Havoc stood relaxed with his cigarette handing from his mouth, as usual.

"Well, goodnight Chief," he said, blowing smoke from the other corner of his mouth. He held his fisted hand out in a mimic of Alphonse's usual parting gesture.

Ed seemed a bit surprised by that action, but grinned and returned the goodbye with a gentle bump of his own fist. "See ya," he said, exaggerating his natural accent for the fun of it, which surprised Havoc in turn.

Somewhere in the distance, a clock tower struck midnight and the quiet night was rocked suddenly by a deafening _**BOOM!** _ followed by the crash and crunch of glass shattering and debris scattering. The dark street lit briefly by a fiery blast before filling with smoke, dust and screams.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **1.** I think it's really too bad that the boys didn't get to spend much time with their dad at the end of the series. I like to think that Hohenheim _would_ still write in Xerxian. And why wouldn't he sing a lullaby for his kids, maybe one that he remembers from his own childhood? Of course, keep in mind that at his point in the story, the brothers don't know anything about their Xerxes heritage.

 **2.** Thanks for reading and for the wonderful reviews!


	7. Fire

Havoc stared at the cracked sidewalk under his nose. He couldn't really explain it but those little bits of cracked cement were fascinating.

"…nant!"

Why were his ears ringing so much?

The man shook his head in an attempt to clear the haze and found himself focusing instead on a pair of wide eyes, golden irises staring intently at him. Really, he'd never seen eyes that colour before. Ever.

"….voc! Havoc!"

The man blinked a couple of times as the sounds came rushing back.

"Hey! Are you with me?" Edward gave the older man a jerking shake by the shoulder while he snapped the fingers of his left hand in front of his face.

"Yeah," he said, coughing the dust out of his throat, "I'm alright." He shook his head, loosing a cloud of finer dust from his hair and sat up. Ed leaned back to give him space. The teen was crouched on his heels, staring at Havoc with concern. His red coat was dusted with fine powdery debris, but overall, he didn't look any worse for wear.

A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk around them. Havoc saw people in their night clothes, dusty and shaken but otherwise okay. A woman gave him a nervous smile, relieved that he was okay but the attention of the crowd was drawn across the street.

Havoc noticed, with a small amount of confusion, that Ed, who was crouched more or less in his face, had an eerie orange halo around his head. The teen's normally buttery golden hair was now a deep bronze, muddied somewhat by dust. When Ed leaned back, Havoc finally saw what the crowd was staring at.

The hotel was on fire.

Thick black smoke poured from the gaping holes of second storey windows. The glass, he realized, had been completely obliterated by the blast. Shattered glass, twisted metal and brick dust blanketed the street.

"You sure?" Ed was asking him, trying to keep the man's focus on him, looking him in the eyes as if he could tell whether or not Havoc was lying.

"Holy shit," was his intelligent response.

This seemed to appease Ed's worry a little. His head snapped to the right as a man came rushing into the small circle around them. "The firemen are on their way," he told Ed. The teen nodded once and, with another concerned glance at Havoc, rose to his feet. The citizens around him towered above his head but Havoc watched, with no small amount of amazement, as Ed took command.

And people listened.

"Stay back," he called to them, and the crowd shuffled further back onto the sidewalk, clearing the road. He issued quick commands left and right.

Havoc was mesmerized.

He was well aware that, technically, Ed outranked him. This had never bothered him the way it bothered some of the other soldiers in his position. Roy trusted Ed's capability as a State Alchemist and Havoc trusted Roy's judgement. But he'd be lying to himself if he said he hadn't doubted Edward Elric, State Alchemist at the age of twelve, could command such authority. That was when they first met.

The boy had qualities that, with a bit of training and loads more experience, could make him an exceptional leader. In a way, the young alchemist reminded him of the Colonel, though he would never say that to either of them.

In times of crisis, like now, those qualities shined above the belligerence, the cocky attitude and the flamboyance. Ed was in his element and he took control easily while the rest of them were still standing with their mouths open.

Havoc shook himself. He was a soldier too and, unlike his much younger teammate, he'd actually seen war. He felt a little like he was embarrassing the Colonel just sitting on the curb staring while Fullmetal handled the situation.

He rose to his feet smoothly and dusted himself off before catching up with Ed in two quick strides.

"Oh, good!" replied the teen when their eyes met, obviously relieved that Havoc was back in action and focused. "Lieutenant, control the crowd until the police and fire crew get here, make sure no one gets too close. Gather the injured in one place for the paramedics," he ordered clearly and without a hint of panic. Again, Havoc was impressed.

"Yes, Sir!" he replied automatically and Ed paused for a second as they looked at each other. Havoc wasn't wrong. As far as chain of command goes, in this situation Ed was the highest ranking officer. The teen said nothing, realizing this as well and also noting that, for once, the address was not made in a joking, or mocking, manner.

"Right," he said, recovering quickly, "Well, uh, alright then. I'm going in."

The blond was halfway across the street when the statement sank in and Havoc made a surprised start. "You're what?" He caught up to the young alchemist and put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.

"You can't go in there!" he said, coughing through the smoke that hung thick over the street. One glance at the building told him it was still a raging inferno. "Are you insane?"

Ed shrugged out of the man's grip. "I have to, there could still be people in there!"

"That's the firemen's job! You'll kill yourself," argued Havoc.

Ed looked at the hotel then back at Havoc with a serious expression. "I know what I'm doing," he said forcefully. His amber eyes burned with their own inner fire, daring Havoc to try and stop him but his tone was asking one thing of the older man. _Trust me._

Before Havoc could protest further, Ed reached the sidewalk on the other side pulling a handkerchief from Lord knew where, covered his face with it and ducked in through the hotel's main entrance.

"It's official," said Havoc out loud, letting his hand drop to his side. "the kid's suicidal." Was he surprised? Not really. He just hoped nothing happened to him or Mustang would kill him.

* * *

Ed noticed right away that there was more smoke than fire. Overall, once inside, he thought the emergency looked much worse than it really was. In fact, there was no fire at all on the main floor and he followed the smoke to its source, winding his way up the familiar wide central staircase to the second storey and to the left. He checked into hotel rooms as he went and kept his eye out for any stragglers but saw no one.

He stayed low, below the smoke and kept his mouth and nose covered. As he made his way along, it was obvious where the source of the problem was. A room three quarters of the way down the long narrow hallway was spilling smoke and flames through its charred opening, where a door used to hang. The very same door was bent and twisted below a mass of cracks in the plaster of the opposite wall.

Ed didn't need to see the number on the door to know which room this was. His heart raced a little faster. This was _his_ room.

Someone had tried to kill him.

* * *

"Almost there." Havoc helped a woman who had sprained her ankle leaving the hotel over to the lit interior of a shop the owner had generously offered. Others sat on the floor being tended to by an older woman who claimed to be a retired nurse. Most were coughing, but not seriously injured.

He wished he was wearing his uniform. The military blue was a sign of authority and though he didn't seem to have any trouble commanding the situation outside, he was getting tired of introducing himself.

"Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc," he said as an introduction to an off-duty police officer who had approached him. The man was middle aged, wore a worn leather jacket and smelled strongly of cigar. He'd been having a drink at a nearby pub and was drawn by the commotion. "Emergency response teams are on their way." He could hear the sirens approaching already.

"Any deaths?" asked the other man in an undertone, sensitive to the presence of civilians.

Havoc frowned, looking back at the hotel. Smoke was still pouring from the upper windows. He worried for Edward. "No way of knowing yet," he said.

The other man nodded, also watching the building. "Is there _anything_ we can do until the fire response gets here?" It seemed more like an open question but Havoc answered anyway.

"We have an alchemist on it."

The other man scoffed. "An alchemist? Unless he's the bloody _Flame_ _Alchemist_ , what's an alchemist going to do?"

"Well he's no Flame Alchemist," Havoc grinned crookedly at the irony of this statement, "but Fullmetal is quite capable, I assure you."

The man looked at him sharply. "Fullmetal's here?"

The grin fell a little from the Lieutenant's face at the sudden change in the other man's tone. "Yeah," he said carefully, "this is where he stays when he's in town. Hey, I didn't quite catch your name, Officer…"

But the man didn't answer. He stared at the burning building with a hard but otherwise unreadable expression.

Havoc frowned. The man was about to say something just as two firetrucks and other emergency vehicles pulled up with their sirens blaring and lights flashing. The men went quickly to work.

The other officer backed away slowly in the commotion. Havoc thought he looked a little pale, but that could have simply been the effects of the coloured lights from the trucks and cars. "I, uh," he started, then cleared his throat and continued with much more confidence. "Right, now that the emergency response is here, I'll head down to the station. Good work out here, Lieutenant," he said as the fire chief approached them. The new man nodded to the officer, who nodded back in a friendly manner. They obviously knew each other.

"Are you Second Lieutenant Havoc?" asked the Fire Chief.

Obviously they had been told that Havoc was handling the situation, even though he really hadn't done anything but keep order in the crowd of people who had evacuated the building or otherwise just come to watch.

As he spoke with the fire chief, Havoc kept an eye on the nameless officer until the man disappeared in the crowd. Their conversation had made him uneasy and he wanted to talk to Roy. This involved Ed somehow. The Colonel had warned the kid to be careful. And now the hotel where he was staying was _on fire_. Something was happening and he didn't like it.

He turned his eyes on the hotel as the fire chief walked away, giving instructions to his men.

"Come on, Ed. Where are you?"

* * *

 **A/N:**

1) This chapter gave me hard time. It was originally _much_ longer but it got to be so long that I decided to chop in into two chapters, hence this much shorter chapter. But hey, the good news is that the _next_ chapter is nearly complete already so you can expect an update much sooner!

2)I tried not make Havoc _too_ useless. He is, after all, on team Mustang so he's got to be good for something right?

3)Thank you for being so patient! Things to look forward to: Ed attempts fire alchemy and gets accused of witchcraft and Havoc gets an insight into what Ed might have done with his life if he wasn't working for Roy.

~Misuto


	8. Reckless is my Name

Right. The first thing to do is to try to put out the fire. Fire Alchemy, how hard can it be? He'd seen Mustang do it once or twice…

Ed winced at the thought of all the things that could go horribly wrong when messing with something as precise and delicate as fire alchemy. How does one control fire anyway? He wished he could spend a few hours with those ignition gloves and really puzzle them out but the bastard never let them out of his sight. Alchemists like him were like that; grudgingly protective of their work.

So how would _he_ put out a fire? The obvious answer was with water _if_ the fire was normal. Ed turned his face away from the heat as he thought. He could access the plumbing in the walls for water but if the fire was anything but normal, water could just make it worse.

What did he know about fire? He broke it down the way he broke down elements for alchemy. Fuel, heat and oxygen.

 _I don't know what started the fire, so fuel's out and I can't control the heat. But the oxygen…_

That's it. That's how Mustang did it. He didn't control _fire_ , he controlled the oxygen. A grin spread on his face even as he squinted against the smoke. The fire was contained to one room, so that made it easier.

Ed focused on the equation he needed, plucking the elements from his memory and inserting them in the right place on the array he was forming in his mind. People were always amazed by his ability to do this but for Ed, it was perfectly normal.

He had to admit though, performing alchemy on something as intangible as air was a bit unnerving and very different from what he was used to. Sweat ran down his face, partly from the heat but also from his concentration. He forced himself to relax, he really didn't want to mess this up.

"Right," he said, bringing his hands together.

Feeling a little awkward, Ed thrust his hands forward, towards the room in a sort of cupping motion and closed his eyes. He needed to concentrate on the air itself and only the air within the room. He pushed the oxygen out and the flames diminished instantly in response. They were suffocating.

In the brief moment when the flames diminished and the smoke almost cleared from the room completely, Ed looked quickly and surveyed the damage. The walls, floor and ceiling were charred black. What was left of the furniture was pushed away from the center of the blast which, he saw, was directly under the window.

And he recognised the signs of alchemy. The explosion had been caused by an alchemist. A small smile appeared on his face at this small victory but quickly vanished. Doing alchemy on air was literally like grasping at nothing and he quickly lost his grip on the transmutation. Rather than trying to hold onto a quickly deteriorating array, he let it drop quickly before the alchemy could rebound.

But the oxygen rebounded in its own way. It rushed into the vacuum of the room, fanning the flames in a rush of heat and fire that made the alchemist duck down to the floor covering his face.

"Holy shit!" He felt his forehead to make sure his eyebrows were where he left them.

 _Alright, maybe Havoc was right, let's leave the firefighting to the firefighters._

His automail was becoming unbearably hot. Now that he knew the fire wasn't the result of a burning chemical or electrical, he reached to the wall, and went with his first plan. He brought out the plumbing. At least dousing the unburnt portion of the hallway might stop the fire from spreading too quickly. The water steamed where it hit his arm but he made sure to soak himself thoroughly, just in case and decided to get out.

Having searched the rest of the place already, he decided not to risk trying to cross to the last few rooms beyond his.

He made his way back along the hallway, hugging the wall. The smoke was starting to make his eyes water and it occurred to him that he didn't need to use doors and stairwells. Ed tried the nearest door and, finding it unlocked, ducked inside. The room was dark and he made his way across it to the outside wall quickly.

He was about to press his hands against the wall but stopped. He heard something. He listened.

In the silence, he heard a sob. A quiet cry somewhere in the room. Spinning around quickly, Ed squinted in the dark towards the attached bathroom and followed the sound. He pushed the door open gently and called out but his voice caught in his dry throat. "Hello?" he coughed out.

Another cry answered him. He extended his good hand to the dark bathroom. "Hey, take my hand, I can get you out!" He held his breath as he waited. Something shuffled from what he guessed was the bathtub. Bare feet slapped against the tile floor and a small hand reached out and took his. A small girl, maybe three or four years old, in a dirty nightgown came out of the deep shadows of the bathroom, her sooty face marked with two cleaner streaks down each cheek.

"Come on," he said, gripping her small hand and pulling her towards the back wall. She came without a word and stared at him with wide eyes the entire time.

"Are you a fireman?" she asked in a timid voice.

Ed snorted. "No I'm not." He let go of her hand and had to pry a little when she clung on. He nudged her back from the wall a little. "I'll get us out, just hang tight, alright?"

She just stared back at him. Pressing his hands together, he then placed them to the wall. The array lit into a beautiful display of electric blue light and he willed the plaster and brick to reshape into a slide that reached all the way to the alley below.

The cooler air that rushed in was refreshing. "Alright, I'll go down first and then you come down right after and I'll catch you okay?"

The girl stared at him and took a step back.

"Are you a wizard?" she asked with wide eyes.

"What?" Ed looked at the slide then back at the girl. "Of course not! That's not magic, it's alchemy, I'm an alchemist!" he defended.

She didn't look convinced. "There's no such thing as magic. Alchemy is science. You could learn to do it too, you know, but first we've got to get out here. You're gonna come down right after me, right?"

She curled her toes in timidly but nodded anyway.

"Alright, I'll catch you, I promise."

When he was sure she was actually going to follow, Ed slid down to the alley and waited for her. She poked her head out and he nodded encouragingly, beckoning her down.

After a hesitating pause, the girl slid down and he caught her, careful to keep his hot automail covered.

Remembering that she was barefoot, her knelt down, turning his back to her as an invitation to get on. "I'll give you a piggy-back," he said.

She wrapped her skinny arms around his neck and he hoisted her up, locking his arms together under her. Once she was comfortably seated, Ed looked up and down the narrow alley that ran behind the hotel. It was blocked at the nearest end by a wall of brick but this did not discourage him in the least. He could see the flashing red lights of the firetrucks above the wall.

Pressing his palms against the brick, he quickly and easily made a doorway.

"Wow," whispered the little girl in his ear, "like magic!"

" _Not_ like magic!" grumbled the teen, "weren't you listening?"

Apparently not, since she started playing with the band that held his braid in place. "Hey," he protested, trying to turn so he could see what she was doing. Too late, he realized that she was tugging at the band and his hair unwound from its messy braid and fell around his shoulders.

He growled at her.

She giggled and slipped the band around her wrist like it was a bracelet with a soft "Pretty."

Ed clenched his teeth and took a deep breath in order not explode on a little girl. He decided to find somewhere to dump her as quickly as possible.

They came out onto the street from the side alley and Ed was glad to see that the fire crews were already hard at work. The paramedics had arrived too, along with some MP Officers so he went to them. He realized how grubby he looked, with his clothes wet, his face smeared with soot and dirtied by smoke.

A young MP turned as they approached with a gentle smile.

"Everything alright Miss?"

It took half a second for that to sink in.

"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?"

"Er-" The poor man, realizing his mistake held his hand out in a placating manner. "Sorry, I-"

Ed tried to reach for his silver watch but couldn't, with the girl still perched on his back. He knelt quickly, dropped her unceremoniously on the sidewalk and rose up to his full height, which only came up the man's chest. "Edward Elric," he said fiercely, practically shoving the watch in the man's face.

The embarrassment turned to horror when the young man got a good look at that watch. There were a lot of mumbles of "my mistake, Sir" and "so sorry, Sir" which ended with a "didn't realize you were a State Alchemist."

The girl appeared around Ed's elbow and looked up at the horrified man with a big smile. "And he's a wizard too!" she said conspiratorially.

"I'M NOT A WIZARD, DAMMIT!"

The girl did not look convinced. The man looked even more alarmed. Several people were staring.

Ed shoved the little girl into the man's arms. "Here, I found it inside, deal with it," he growled, giving up on the idea of getting his hair band back. He had more in his… oh yeah. Ed turned to look at the broken window that had been his room and frowned.

"Yo Chief!"

Havoc came striding towards him, covering much distance with his long legs. "I thought I heard you yelling," he said once he'd reached the teen. "Glad to see you made it out in one piece." The man noticed his loose hair and the wet dirty clothes but did not comment on them.

Ed's annoyed expression sobered. He lowered his voice and turned away from the nearest group of uniformed men, subtly indicating that Havoc should walk with him. "Yeah, well if I'd been in my bed a little earlier, I might not _be_ still in one piece."

Havoc frowned but let the teen continue.

Ed looked around him surreptitiously as if the person responsible might decide to try again at any moment. "Only one room was damaged, this was a targeted attack." Edward looked hunted, looking left and right, sizing up everyone they passed on the sidewalk as if they might suddenly turn on them.

Havoc surveyed the firemen at work as they passed. It seemed as if they had it under control despite the smoke still hanging thick in the air. "Geez, Ed, I'm beginning to think you have some enemies," he said airily, trying to lighten the mood.

Ed spun around. "Really?! What gave it away?" he snapped, brushing his loose hair away from his face, agitated. "That?" he pointed in the general direction of the smoking building, "Or," he lowered his voice, "the fact that someone just tried to _kill me_?"

"Hey," Havoc gripped the younger man's shoulder and turned him so that they were face to face. "What is going on?" He remembered Mustang's warning. He decided they should call the Colonel. He was probably in bed sleeping at this hour but Havoc didn't care. If this really was a targeted attack on an Alchemist of the State, it was very serious indeed.

Ed took a deep breath and shook his head subtly. "Not here." Anyone could be watching. Listening. "Hey, while you were out here, did you see anything odd? Suspicious?" Hughes had told him once that criminals often came to the scene of their crimes, disguised as bystanders.

"Well, there was this one guy," started Havoc.

"Guy? What guy?"

"A police officer. He came before anyone else got here." Havoc indicated the emergency crews. "Said he was off duty, having a pint, you know?"

"How is that weird?"

"What's weird is the way he reacted when I told him _you_ were here. He was shocked. And considering you should be dead right now, the fact he was shocked you were still around is pretty fucking weird."

Ed raised an eyebrow at Havoc, surprised by his use of language. In the office, they all (except Ed, of course) kept it more or less professional but Ed was under no illusions that soldiers cursed among themselves when not in polite company.

"What did he look like?"

Havoc looked around as if he could spot the man to help him give a more accurate description but he was no doubt long gone by now.

"Big guy, a little older, my height with short sandy hair. Looked like he lost his razor-"

"Blue eyes? Kinda mean looking?"

The man had not spoken to Havoc in a mean way, but he could see, remembering the set of the man's face, how someone would get the impression that he was mean. Some people just had that kind of face.

"Yeah…"

"Son of a-"

Havoc raised his eyebrows. "Do you know him?" This was getting more interesting by the minute.

"If it's who I think it is, yeah, unfortunately. He's on the investigation team I'm working with down at the station." Ed raised his automail to rake his hand through his hair but thought better of it and completed the action with his good hand. Havoc guessed this was an old habit. "It was him, I know it was."

Havoc raised his hands in a gently placating manner. "Hey, this is a pretty serious accusation. What makes you think it was him?"

Ed gave him a look as if it should be obvious, but realized Havoc did not know all of the details. "Well he did outright threaten me today…"

It was all starting to make sense. An alchemist on the inside. Ed was suddenly sure he'd hit the nail on the head with the abandoned mine. Why else was he suddenly a target? Hartley was there when Ed and Sean talked about the mine. He got scared and decided to target Ed directly. Only he failed. And now he knows he failed so he ran.

"Havoc, which way did he go?"

Havoc frowned unsure of what the teen was planning on doing with the information he was about to give. He sighed, giving in. "He said he was going to the Police Station."

Edward didn't reply to that. He just turned and started to walk away leaving Havoc confused for a second before he rushed to catch up. "Hey hey hey! Hold on!" The older man kept up easily with the shorter teen. "You don't even know if he's telling the truth about where he went-,"

"Only one way to find out."

"And even if he _is_ behind the attack, you don't actually have proof-,"

The teen ignored him.

"Ed," Havoc dropped his carefree tone, something he rarely did and Edward stopped to listen, though impatience showed in his expression and his stance. "There is a reckless way to deal with this and a proper way. We need to regroup. We need to call the Colonel and make the right decisions."

Ed's expression hardened a little. "If you want to call Mustang," he said slowly, dangerously, "go ahead. I'm done dealing with red tape, I'm going after Hartley."

He didn't wait for an answer, instead turning and striding away in the direction he had been headed. Havoc hesitated a moment, trying the weigh the pros and cons of following along. Ed outranked him, so short of physically holding the teen down, there was nothing Havoc could do to stop him.

He knew Roy would want to know what was happening and call the shots. Heck, that's how their team _worked._ There was a reason Roy was Colonel; he was the mastermind behind all of their operations. Then again, he'd given this assignment to Fullmetal. Havoc _knew_ how Fullmetal dealt with his assignments. His methods were unconventional, sure, but he always got the job done. Especially jobs others were too intimidated by rules and in some cases, laws, to accomplish.

Mustang would be angry with him for not calling. But he _knew_ he would disapprove of his Second Lieutenant letting a team mate go alone without backup even more, State Alchemist or not. Making up his mind, he followed Fullmetal.

* * *

The station was a good six blocks from the hotel. Ed briefed Havoc quickly of the events that had led up to tonight's attack on the hotel and then fell silent.

"So you're sure this was an alchemist's work?"

Ed gave the older man a look that asked _what do you take me for?_ "Positive."

The building was dark when they got there and the main entrance was locked. After trying once, Ed quickly walked to a side alley and motioned for Havoc to follow. "He'd go to the evidence warehouse, if he's here," whispered the teen at Havoc's questioning look. The alley was blocked by a locked gate and a chain link fence topped with razor wire.

Without comment, and with a malicious grin, Ed took a running leap at the fence. Locking his metal fingers through the holes he scaled the remaining two feet easily. Perched on top, with the wire bent uselessly under his automail shin, he smirked cockily down at Havoc.

Havoc raised an eyebrow. "You know, for someone who works for the government, you sure seem to have a lot of experience in breaking and entering," he remarked dryly.

Ed chuckled. "Makes you wonder what I'd be up to if I _wasn't_ working for the government," he added with a raised eyebrow.

Havoc sized up the fence. He could scale it, maybe not as gracefully as the kid had, but the wire posed a problem. His arms and legs were no so impervious to razor wire. "Why can't you just use alchemy to make a hole in the fence?" It seemed logical enough.

But Ed shook his head and started to take off his red coat. "Alchemy leaves traces," he answered in a manner of professional opinion.

The older man watched as Ed bunched the coat up into a ball and, clapping his hands together, transmuted it somehow, using his body to shield the light. When it was done, he spread the coat out, which didn't look any different if a little stiff, over the top of the fence and offered Havoc another grin. "I made the material harder so the wire won't cut you," he added at the older man's blank stare, as if this should have been obvious.

Honestly, what _would_ a kid of his talent, genius and delinquency be up to if Mustang hadn't scooped him up?

Accepting the help, Havoc climbed up and over the fence, hopping down on the other side. Then Ed threw down his coat so that Havoc could catch it and joined him. The teen changed the material back as they walked and slipped back into it. Other than slightly bent wire at the top, the fence gave no other sign of having been breached. The alley, which was used for truck deliveries, opened up into a yard that was lined with large warehouse buildings.

They were all dark except the one that had a large number five on it.

"Is that Evidence?" whispered Havoc.

Ed frowned, looking between warehouses five and six. "No," he said, a little surprised, "that's the garage." It was well past midnight by now so the idea that someone was simply working late was very unlikely.

"Let's check it out," he said, moving swiftly along the buildings. When they got closer, Havoc tapped the young man on the shoulder, pointing silently to the narrow alley between the buildings and they moved quietly into it.

"What, exactly, is your plan?" he whispered, crouching down to make himself smaller and hopefully, less noticeable.

Ed just shrugged, a clear sign that he had no plan. Right.

At Havoc's incredulous stare, Ed fidgeted a little. "What?" he added defensively. "I just go in there, see what's going on and _then_ figure out a plan."

Havoc shook his head still staring in disbelief. He was suddenly more impressed that the kid had survived his first year of missions. There were so many things wrong with that plan he didn't even know where to start.

He focused on the obvious. "We're not even armed," he pointed out.

Ed's answer was to touch his hands together and press them into the side of the warehouse. In a flash of electric blue and a static buzz that made the hairs on Havoc's arms stand on end, the metal morphed into a nasty looking short sword with a gaudy hilt. After dumping the weapon carelessly into Havoc's hands, Ed transmuted himself a blade out of the plating of his automail and grinned wickedly at him. "Now we're armed."

Havoc didn't point out to the alchemist that he was trained in marksmanship, _not_ fencing. It was better than nothing.

Havoc was trained in these sorts of operations and made his feet light, traveling without a sound. Ed moved swiftly and silently too, with only the soft clinking of the metal joints giving him away. The bay door was open letting light spill out into the dark yard in a sharply defined square. They stood in the shadows in perfect stillness, listening. All they heard from the yard and the garage was the chirping of frogs and beetles.

Havoc made a signal to Ed to let him go first, which the teen obliged. A first look into the garage revealed no one. He advanced cautiously and, staying low, made his way into the light, staying close to the wall.

There really didn't seem to be anybody there.

"Looks like no one's home," declared Ed out loud, walking around the corner and standing in the light. Wide open.

Havoc flinched and closed his eyes, shaking his head in disbelief. Well if _that_ hadn't drawn any attention, the place really must be empty. "Damn, Chief, does reconnaissance mean _anything_ to you?" he said, standing up but keeping his back against the wall, just in case.

Ed gave him a purposely blank stare.

Havoc shook his head. "Never mind." He was going to have a chat with the Colonel about giving this kid some basic training if he expected him to live to see his fourteenth birthday.

"The car's gone," observed the teen, pointing to the middle of the cluttered garage. Oil stains on the cement showed where a vehicle is normally kept.

"Only one?" remarked Havoc. He meant it as a joke but Ed wasn't listening. His head snapped to the far corner and he stood staring intently at it.

"I heard something," he said at Havoc's questioning look. They both stood perfectly still and listened.

In the silence they heard a thump. And another one. The two exchanged a wary glance and Ed raised his sword arm expectantly. And then they heard a muffled cry.

"There's someone here," whispered the younger man. He moved towards the rear of the building. Cautiously this time, Havoc was happy to note. His entire stance changed. He looked like a predator on the prowl, his head cocked listening. _Like a cat_ , mused the older man.

Their hunt led them down a narrow hall made narrower by a buildup of clutter, past the office at the back to a door labelled "Storeroom A."

Havoc kept a look out in the office as Ed approached the door and stood in front of it, listening. Something was moving around in there. Another muffled cry made Ed reach for the handle but the door was locked.

Locks were never an issue for Ed. He transmuted the lock, handle and all into dust and pulled the door open. Again, Havoc was reminded of how easy it would be for someone like Ed to break into, say, a bank? He was glad the kid had high moral standards, somewhere in there.

Ed flicked the light on in the storage room and raised an eyebrow. "Who're you?"

A muffled voice answered him and Havoc pulled the door open the rest of the way to see inside.

A man lay on the floor hog tied and gagged and both of them stared at him. He stared right back and lifted his bound wrists towards them. It looked like he was praying. He was a mechanic, judging by the stained overalls.

"Shit man," mumbled Havoc, stepping around Ed. He crouched down and cut the ropes around the man's wrists with his insanely sharp sword. While he worked on the ankle bindings, the man pulled the dirty, oil stained rag from his mouth, gulping in large breaths of clean air.

"What happened to you?" asked Havoc, helping the man sit up.

"It was Ben, he just, he,-"

Havoc turned to Ed with a raised eyebrow. "Ben?"

"Hartley," growled Ed.

"It was like he just snapped! He came in here demanding the keys. He was crazy!"

"Well there's nothing new," mumbled the teen.

"Woah, slow down. The keys to what?" asked Havoc, shooting Ed a look bordering on impatience.

The man took a deep breath. "I was working late, just about to close up when Ben comes running in. He said he needed to use the car, which was odd because it's almost one o'clock. I told him he needed to requisition the use of the car, like always but he got so mad. He demanded I give him the keys. He threatened me and when I refused, he clocked me and tied me up." The man emphasized this statement by rubbing the back of his head, feeling for a bump.

"Do you know where he might have gone?" The question was for both Ed and the mechanic. The man shook his head, bewildered by the whole thing but Ed frowned.

"Well if I were him, knowing the Fullmetal Alchemist was still alive and out for my blood," he said fiercely, "I'd be halfway to Creta by now." The mechanic watched in mild horror as the blond lifted his sword arm and looked at it with murderous intent as if he were imagining the horrible things he would do to Ben Hartley when they caught up to him. "But I don't think he's running," he continued finally.

"Why steal a car, right?" added Havoc, thinking out loud. "He could have more easily disappeared, caught a train out of the city."

"Exactly." Ed noticed the way the mechanic was looking at him and transmuted his arm back to normal with a smirk. No need to give the poor man a heart attack, he's already had a bad night.

Ed and Havoc helped the man to the office and offered to call him an ambulance, which he refused. "No, no, I'm alright, honestly." Havoc suspected he was embarrassed by the situation.

They left him in the office and walked out through the garage to stand in the yard. Ed stood with his hands in his pockets, frowning into the darkness. Havoc came up beside him and lit a cigarette. "We should call this in. We can have more eyes out looking for him and-"

"I know exactly where he's going," interrupted the teen.

Havoc said nothing, just watching him.

"The mine. He went to the mine. I figured it out and he tried to kill me. I wouldn't be surprised if he went after Sean too. Now that he knows I'm still alive, he'll try to cover it up, whatever he's hiding there. Move it or destroy it, so that's where he's gone," he said with certainty.

"Alright, so…"

"I'm going after him," said the teen simply.

"Alone?"

Ed shrugged, offering the older man a smile. "Not if you come with me."

"Uh huh. And we're walking there?" he asked wryly.

Ed's gaze drifted to a warehouse along the row with a big number 3 painted on the front and grinned. It was an Elric grin; the kind that heralded craziness.

"I've got a better idea," he said and somehow made it sound more like _I hope you're ready to die tonight, Jean Havoc._

* * *

 **A/N** :

1\. You have to give Mustang _some_ credit for his mastery of Fire Alchemy. I know Ed's a prodigy and all that but it took Mustang years to master the art. And so I don't doubt that Ed _could_ learn it, probably on his own, I just don't think even he could get it on the first shot.

2\. The magic is a bit of a nod to my fav. crossover pairings, FMA HP. Though magic does not exist in this world, I love the idea of crossing alchemy and magic.

3\. If you'd like to know what I think Ed would be doing with his life if things had gone differently at the beginning, I'd like to introduce you to a fic over on Archive of Our Own titled **The Demon Alchemist** by _metisket_. No, I did not write this fic but it is one of my favorites so I highly recommend it.

4\. I'll try to keep up to date with posting new chapters but please don't despair if you don't see an update for a while.

5\. Thanks! I never thought this story would be so popular! We're nearing the end, so hold tight and enjoy the ride!


	9. Horse Theft

"You have got to be kidding me."

Ed chuckled in response but said nothing. He walked into the stables with a purpose and several large heads popped up over the stall doors curiously.

Havoc remained planted in the open doorway. "Seriously, we can just go back to Headquarters and borrow a car. You have the authority you know. Heck, _I_ have the authority."

Ed ignored him as he walked up and down the stalls, patting reaching noses as he went, trying to decide which animal to take. It probably didn't matter in the end since they were all well trained work horses. But they were all so _big._

With resignation, he settled on the chestnut mare because she was the smallest horse on the team. He made sure Havoc knew the choice was strictly because he liked her colours, though, and certainly _not_ because he felt dwarfed by the others. Sure enough, her tack and saddle hung beside her stall and he got to work. He paused when he realized the other man was still standing by the door.

"Well?" he said with a touch of exasperation, "Are you coming or aren't you?"

Havoc leaned casually against the door frame. "I'm, uh, pretty sure this is _illegal_ Chief…"

Ed shrugged to show he didn't care.

"Seriously, though, why aren't we just using a car?" reasoned the older man.

Ed sighed forcefully, showing impatience as he propped himself on the stall door in order to look straight at Havoc. "The road leading to the mine is a shitty dirt road," he started as if he was explaining that the sky was blue to a toddler.

Havoc didn't appreciate the condescending tone but his easy going nature won over and he let it slide. "At this time of year, it'll be soupy with mud and probably washed out from the spring storms. Which means," the teen went on, ducking as the horse chose that moment to nuzzle the back of his head and sent loose strands fluttering in her warm breath, "that a horse is the better choice to foot the road. If Hartley really did use that car, he was either smart and left it at the main road then walked in or stupid and got stuck halfway up the hill and had to walk in anyway. The point is he's on foot. So despite having a head start on us we may just be able to catch up with him."

The two stared at each other.

"Huh," was Havoc's only reply to that. "Alright, that….actually makes a lot of sense," he admitted finally in resignation. He stepped up to one of the stalls and reached in to pat the nose of a spotted gelding.

Edward watched him a moment longer. "Ever ridden before?" he asked with a touch of skepticism.

"I'll have you know," said the older man with a mock scowl, "that my grandparents owned a cattle farm and I probably have more experience riding than you do."

He went about proving this by tacking up his horse in record time. He finished while Ed was still fiddling with the bridle. "Although," he admitted, leading the animal from his stall, "I haven't done it since I was a teenager." The teen looked up long enough to shoot Havoc an incredulous look before he went back to convincing his horse to take the bit.

"Oh and by the way," he added, pinning the young alchemist with a smirk that _almost_ rivaled Mustang's, "if I get charged with horse theft, I'm telling them you _ordered_ me to do it."

Ed seemed to ponder this for all of two seconds before shrugging with a casual "whatever" thrown in for good measure. The teen was not worried in the least and Havoc could only wonder at what else the Elrics had gotten away with.

When they were finally done, they led their horses to the yard and found the mechanic waiting for them. "I'll open the gate for you," he said, eyeing the horses but didn't comment on them.

"We'll take good care of them," Ed reassured him, placing his foot in the stirrup and climbing into the saddle. He struggled a little because the horse was so tall but managed it pretty well otherwise. Once Havoc was seated in his own saddle, they waited for the man to open the gate.

"How did music lessons turn into a manhunt on horseback in the middle of the night?" he mused, lighting a cigarette.

Ed shrugged dispassionately as he tied his long hair back in a messy pony tail with a strip of leather he must have picked up somewhere. It was a different look on him, one that made him look older somehow.

"Do all your missions go like this?" grinned the older man.

The teen returned the grin. "More or less," he offered vaguely.

Havoc laughed. He was beginning to see where all that paperwork came from.

* * *

They made good time. Once they got going, riding came back to Havoc easily. It really had been a long time since he'd been in a saddle, not since he was much older than Edward. But he found that he still enjoyed it. The horse was well tempered, as he would expect from a work horse.

It was lucky that they were already close to the edge of East City in the direction they were going. The horse's shod hooves made a metallic _click clack_ on the streets that seemed unbearably loud in the stillness of the night.

Havoc followed Ed since he didn't really know where they were going. The road took them north east out of the city and the ground started to rise gradually. Once they left the city lights behind them, the moon lit the way. It was waxing, not quite full, but bright enough to cast shadows over the road.

They rode in silence for a good half hour. Havoc's hands were starting to get cold and he alternated them between the reins and his coat. He could see his breath puff in the air around his face. It was spring, after all, and the nights were still very cold. He _almost_ wished he was back in his sweltering apartment. Almost.

Without a word, Edward veered into a side road that Havoc would have missed completely. Where the main road rose gradually over the hills, this side road rose steeply.

"Tires," said Ed suddenly, pointing down into the mud. Even in the shadows of the branches overhead, he could clearly see two deep ruts in the soft mud.

"I guess we're on the right track," answered the older man. They stood still for a moment looking up the narrow, dim road. "Hey, Chief, is there any chance you can," he waved a hand in front of him vaguely, struggling with the word, " _alchemize_ me a gun?" he finished lamely.

Ed stared at him with an expression somewhere between horror at the butchering of the term and amusement. "No," he said, shaking his head. "I can't _transmute_ you a gun." He gave the older man a sarcastic look before adding "You might not be aware of this, but I haven't spent much time studying the inner components of firearms. So unless you want a weapon that's more likely to blow up in your hand than to shoot somebody, I can't help you."

He started off again and Havoc followed, making a face behind the alchemist's back that read _sorry I asked_. Teenagers…

They followed the road a long way further into the bush as the terrain got rougher around them. Eventually they came around a corner and saw a large dark lump sitting low on the road. The soft light from the moon glinted off the sleek metal body of a car. There was no movement and the road was silent except for the soft chinking of the horse's harnesses and their gentle snorts.

Ed dismounted, his feet landing in the mud with a squelch and he walked around the car cautiously. Havoc kept an eye out to the surrounding woods from his high position in the saddle. After a full tour around the car, Ed came to stand beside the Lieutenant's mount, his breath rising in front of his face.

"There's foot prints leading away from the auto, looks like it got stuck in the mud," he said without having to add the _I told you so_ which was evident on his face. "The hood's still warm so it can't have been here that long."

Havoc opened his mouth but a shrill cry cut him short. It was long and mournful at first and then broke off into a chorus yips and yells. Both horses startled but stayed where they were and Ed jumped, his head whipping around to the north slope. He made a grab for the mare's reins before she decided she wanted to be anywhere but there.

Havoc grinned from his perch, patting his horse gently on the neck to calm him.

"Coyotes," he said flatly but he couldn't keep the amusement from his face. He'd never seen the kid startle like that before.

"I know that!" snapped the teen. He climbed back into his saddle and the mare made a full nervous turn before coming to a stop close to Havoc's horse.

"Let's get a move on, we're catching up," huffed the alchemist with another glance to the north.

Havoc couldn't agree more. The coyotes sounded a long way off but he still didn't want to meet a pack of them in the dead of night without a weapon.

They started off again at a quickened pace.

The road carried them deeper into the forest and, rounding a sharp bend, opened into a wider clearing before continuing on the other side, eventually, leading to the railroad. On one side of the cleared space, the rock rose sharply and in the side of that hill was a gaping hole.

"That's the mine," Ed stated needlessly.

The hole was a square, clean cut into the very rock of the hill that was wide enough for a car to drive in and high enough for a tall truck. Fog billowed out of the gaping, dark hole and caught the clear light from the moon.

"Well that's not creepy at all," remarked Havoc drily.

"It's the temperature difference," explained Ed, apparently oblivious to the other man's sarcasm in favor of a scientific explanation. "The warmer, more humid air outside is condensing in the colder air flowing out from the mine."

Havoc raised an eyebrow. That didn't make it any less creepy. "How did you even find this place, anyway," he asked, casting an eye around the clearing. Rusty, old mining machinery lay scattered just beneath the shrubs and dead winter grasses.

The alchemist dismounted and led the mare to the side of the clearing. She would have to stay here, he couldn't risk her panicking in the closed, cramped space of the tunnel. "Me and Al came here last fall for, er…," he glanced at the other man nervously. Ed wasn't sure how much Mustang's crew were privy to the brothers' _real_ research. "Never mind. The point is, I'm familiar enough with the area that I remembered it when we did the evidence analysis. It was the metals, see. Bismuth is not exactly a common metal but it _is_ around here."

Havoc followed his example and also dismounted. He looked at the gaping hole in the side of the hill. "I had no idea this was here," he remarked with wonder.

"There used to be huge mines around here like a hundred and fifty years ago," continued the teen. He looked appraisingly at Havoc. "Geez, didn't you pay attention to history in school?"

Havoc offered a sheepish grin. "Er, I wasn't exactly _in_ school very often, if you know what I mean." It was true that he and his friends had spent more time skipping school than attending.

"Slacker," Ed teased with an approving grin.

Havoc gave the younger man a gentle push on the shoulder. "Yeah, you're one to talk. At least I didn't drop out of the fourth grade," he countered.

Ed sighed, shaking his head. "And yet I still know more than you. Just stop before you embarrass yourself even more. Come on," he cut in as Havoc opened his mouth to retort, reminding him that they were in somewhat of a hurry.

Standing at the mouth of that dark opening, Havoc could feel the colder air flowing past them and see the fog curling around their ankles. A broken and rusted lantern reminded him suddenly of an important fact. "We're going to need light," he said quietly. The ominous presence of the mine made him feel small and insignificant.

"Right," agreed the younger man with a glance at where Havoc was looking. The old lantern looked like a carbide lamp. Easy to repair, for an alchemist, but dangerous. He shook his head. "Open flames underground are a bad idea. But maybe…"

He crouched down over the old lamp and frowned in thought for a long minute. Havoc stood staring, waiting for something to happen.

"Uh, Chief?" he asked after a while.

"Ammonium chloride, manganese dioxide and zinc and then adding a bar of carbon," the young alchemist muttered to himself, ignoring the lieutenant.

"Got it," he said at last, rocking back to sit on his feet. Touching his hands together, he then placed them on the ground around the broken lantern. The bright light made Havoc look away and the horses whinny nervously. When he looked again, Ed had in his hands a long metal tube with a glass end and on his face, a satisfied grin.

Havoc raised an eyebrow.

The teen hefted the tube once, testing its weight, then pointed the glass end towards the darkness of the mine entrance and flicked a switch set on the side. Light beamed from the glass end and illuminated the clean cut walls just inside the opening.

"It's a flash light!" he announced proudly. "I saw one in a shop in Central once. It runs on a battery cell," he explained.

Havoc had also seen the devices once or twice. They were a relatively new invention and he was impressed that Edward could create one, seemingly, from thin air. "You reverse engineered a flash light from something you _saw in a shop one time?_ " he asked, astonished. _State Alchemist_ , he reminded himself. This kid had earned his State Alchemist licence at the age of twelve.

"Yeah, well, once you know how it works, the rest is just," he shrugged casually, "chemistry."

Havoc frowned. "And you still won't make me a gun?" he pushed.

The smile fell from the teen's face and he frowned. "No," he said shortly, handing the flash light to Havoc in order to free both hands in case he needed to use alchemy. Without another word, he started for the tunnel, expecting the older man to follow.

With a resigned sigh, Havoc did follow, holding the metal tube so that the narrow beam would light their way.

Maybe it was just his imagination, but Havoc was really starting to think that Edward just didn't like guns.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **1.** I know from the series that Havoc's parents were country store owners but I wanted him to have a farm experience background so his grandparents farmed cattle.

 **2.** I'm not sure whether or not Ed really does have experience with horses or if he's just bluffing his way along. ;)

 **3.** The description of the mine is based on a personal real life experience visiting an abandoned Mica mine close to my hometown. Albeit, I went during the day time and brought a flashlight from home rather than transmuting one...

 **4.** While we're on the subject of flashlights. You might be thinking "Hey, they didn't have flashlights in the early 20th century!" Fun fact: Portable electric lights were invented around 1896! They were shitty as hell and could only light for a few seconds at a time, hence the name "flash light". However, even if they weren't so old, in Ed's world (where they have such marvels as automail) it would be completely conceivable that they had also invented battery powered portable lights by the time this story takes place. Not that I'm trying to be completely historically accurate in a fictional world...

 **5.** "Why does Ed keep calling cars autos?" - I don't know. He just does. Chalk it up to a queer Resembool dialect if you must. I don't imagine they have many _autos_ in such a backwater town.

 **6.** Ok last one. End of the year is a busy time for everyone, myself included. That said, I'm saying this now, there probably won't be an update until well into the new year. Yes I am continually working on it, bear with me folks! Thanks a million for all the lovely reviews!


	10. The Little East River

There were very few things that Roy Mustang minded being woken up for in the middle of the night. His telephone ringing was not one of them. It took just a few seconds for the message to travel from his ears to his sleep bogged brain and on to his muscles, but in that few seconds, the message seemed to go on a roller coaster ride through said sleep bogged brain.

Confusion at first, as the fish he'd just caught in his dream opened its mouth and started ringing at him while still dangling from the hook. Alarm, as he was abruptly pulled from the land of dreams to reality. Panic, as his days in Ishbal screamed at him to get up, move! You're under fire! Confusion again, as he found himself back in his bedroom in East City, in the dark of night. And irritation when he finally realized what that annoying noise coming from the front hall was.

Grumpily, he dragged himself out of bed and made his way through his dark apartment in his nightshirt to answer the bloody thing. _This had better be good_.

He answered and listened drowsily, a frown appearing as the information came through and failed to make sense. A silence stretched from both ends of the line as his brain finally arrived at full attention and he did a mental double take.

"He did _what?"_

* * *

 **Six Months Earlier**

It was obvious to both of them, even if they didn't want to voice their disappointment, that whatever had happened in this dim, damp lab had happened a very long time ago. Al brushed a layer of dusty grime off the top of a wooden box, lifted the lid and peered inside. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he could make out small bones at the bottom, some sort of animal.

The eerie silence was shattered as Ed aimed a violent kick at a large glass bottle, sending it crashing against the glittering, quartz studded walls of the man-made cavern. "Damn it!" he snarled, venting his frustration.

Alphonse frowned inwardly. He understood his brother's feelings but smashing the place wouldn't help anything. This was yet another dead end in a long string of recent dead ends and even his optimism was being dampened, both literally and figuratively, by this latest disappointment.

Then again, thought the younger boy wryly as he scanned the glass littered worktables, the lab was already such a ruined mess that one more broken bottle would make very little difference. There was nothing here they could use. The books were so degraded by the wet atmosphere that the pages had long passed the stage of mildew and simply crumbled at the lightest touch. The few beakers left intact had a grungy film layer at the bottom which was all that was left of the previous contents.

"What a waste of time," muttered Ed moodily casting an unimpressed gaze around the room. The people who had abandoned the place had been thorough in making sure there was nothing of any value left behind. Judging by the stuff and the amount of rust and dust and grime coating everything, no one had been here in about a hundred years. And that, unfortunately, fit in with the rumour they were chasing. A hint of a rumour, really, that there had been alchemical experimentations being done on humans in the area about eighty years ago.

But like with all rumours, especially really old ones like this one, the facts were difficult to pin down. The story was passed by word of mouth and crossed generations so that every local had a different version. They had to focus on the basic facts that came up consistent again and again. Crazy alchemist. Missing people. Secret underground lab.

"Well," said Al tentatively, "we haven't looked at everything yet, maybe there's more." He was trying to keep his own hopes up, more than his brother's but Edward gave an irritated huff, as if he wanted to complain some more but resisted. Instead his eyes drifted up to the ceiling of the rough lab to a series of electric lights connected by a maze of wires.

He pointed above his head. "Pretty sophisticated for being almost a hundred years old," he remarked. But the lights did look very old and he didn't directly recognize the design that was the standard for electric lighting in Amestris.

Alphonse, who towered closer to the ceiling and so had a better view of the lights nodded in agreement. "This alchemist was said to be a genius, maybe he invented his own lighting system independently." His eyes followed the run of wires to the far end of the lab room where they disappeared through a hole cut into the stone wall above a rough metal door. Edward also followed the wires with his eyes nearly at the same exact time and the brothers didn't have to say anything to each other to agree on where to explore next.

The door wouldn't budge. Whether it was locked or rusted shut didn't matter much to Edward as he made quick work of it using alchemy. Beyond the door was a tunnel, which the boys followed using their lanterns to light the way until they came into a slightly larger space with a low ceiling. On the right, the dim lantern illuminated a series of rusted metal bars interspersed with stone.

"Guess that's where he kept his prisoners…" Al trailed off in a whisper as he eyed the rusted locks still attached.

But Ed's attention was drawn elsewhere. A slight frown of concentration appeared on his face as he cocked his head slightly, listening attentively. "Do you hear that?" he asked quietly.

Al listened too. There was the constant rush of air that they'd been hearing since coming deep into the old mine. Al guessed that there was another opening somewhere beyond the maze of square cut tunnels that allowed a current of air to pass through. As it snaked around the tight spaces, the air made a low rushing sound similar to the sound of air passing through a sea shell. It was that effect that made some people believe they could hear the ocean when they listened.

This was different. It was a similar rush, but deeper, with a rumbling quality to it.

"Like water," suggested the younger alchemist, who could feel the vibration through the armour.

The cables led them closer to the source of the noise and the rumble grew louder until it reached a thunderous roar. The cavern they came to was much larger and seemed more natural in shape than the square cut tunnels of the old mine they had been following. The ceiling was concealed in the darkness above their heads, further than the light of the lantern could reach.

And there, pouring out of a side tunnel high above them on the left, water plunged into a long and narrow pool. Where the water exited was also concealed by darkness but judging by the flow of the current, Al guessed it was somewhere further along the long and narrow cave.

There was evidence that this place had been used both for mining and for the alchemist's dirty experiments. Old mining equipment had been left to rust including a mining car that still sat on rusted rails, even though the rails led to and disappeared below the surface of the rushing water.

"Looks like it was flooded after the mine was shut down," remarked Edward, almost shouting over the thunder of the falls. The evidence that the water's tunnel had been made using alchemy was obvious to the both of them. "Probably a diverted channel from the Little East River."

The boys were familiar with the rough geography of the area. The river ran south from its source in the hills north-east of East City before swinging west through the Resembool Valley where it was prone to flooding during the spring storms. From there, it headed far to the south west, eventually dumping into the ocean somewhere in Aerugo.

Ed pointed a little higher, about halfway up the falling water to a rusted contraption that looked like a water wheel. The wire and lighting of the labs suddenly made sense. "Hydroelectricity!" he shouted with a touch of excitement.

"Yeah," answered Al, distracted and not nearly as fascinated by the wheels and turbines as his brother, "but what is that?"

The armoured boy pointed to another mechanical contraption sitting on a somewhat dilapidated table. It had broken glass vials and tubes and melted wires coming out of it in a chaotic mess with more bits and pieces along with old, crisp papers strewn around it on the worktable.

Edward approached the table and blew on the dust lifting it in a choking cloud that he had to back away from. Al, unaffected by the dust, lifted the papers. They were carefully drawn diagrams indicating, in miniscule looping script, the dimensions and specifics of, whatever that thing was. Most of papers were illegibly ruined by age and some, by fire. The ones that could still be read were mostly mechanical and of little interest but some of the markings caught the young alchemist's eye.

"Brother!"

Ed reappeared by the table with watering eyes and Al laid the papers down, holding them flat with one enormous gauntlet. "This is alchemy!"

Alchemy that neither of them had ever seen. "I can't even tell what these arrays are supposed to do," said Ed as he scrutinized the tiny writing by the light of their lantern.

"There," said Al, pointing at a symbol that was familiar to him, "isn't that one for lightning?"

"Yeah, or," he said, with a backward glance at the rushing water, "electricity. But what are all of these?" asked the older Elric, sweeping a finger over a series of symbols for elements he had never heard of. And he knew his elements. Another paper, which was half singed, showed the same elements in more detail but the missing part of the paper made the information nearly useless. Edward frowned as he tried to decipher the information. "This doesn't make sense. If I'm reading this right, this stuff would be highly unstable," he said, bringing the paper right up to his face in a useless attempt to see it better.

"Looks like this alchemist was experimenting with making his own elements or something."

Al shook his head. "But that wouldn't work, you can't just create elements."

"I know but," Ed laid the papers back down and gestured in a beats me manner. "Look, the guy was crazy, alright? Just because he wrote this stuff down, doesn't mean he actually created it. I mean, look at this thing." The older brother, prodded at the sad looking device. "Clearly, he didn't get anywhere with it."

Al was uncertain. He looked at the array and looked at the device pensively. What was the use of alchemy that was so unstable? Ed tapped the array with one metal finger. "Whoever wrote this either knew absolutely nothing on alchemy or he was trying to blow himself into vapour," he added with a scoff.

Al's pensive mood sobered as a dark thought crossed his mind. Sensing the change somehow, Ed looked at his brother with an unspoken request to share his thoughts.

"Maybe that's what it's _supposed_ to do," said the younger boy as he stared at the device. The alchemy was so unbalanced it seemed almost purposely so. And the elements in question would degrade with devastating power. "Something like this could take out a whole city," remarked the younger alchemist somberly.

Ed's eyebrows rose and he looked at the device in a new light. "What, you think it's some kind of bomb?"

"You said so yourself, Brother. The man was crazy." Al picked up the papers, trying to decipher them again. All he could make out was something about unbalanced elements and electricity.

Ed cast another distasteful look at the device and crossed his arms, regaining his usual composure. "Well, then I guess we're lucky he never finished it," he said lightly. "But we shouldn't leave this stuff lying around," he added thoughtfully.

"You think we should hand it over to the Colonel?"

A look of disgust crossed the older boy's face. "So the military can develop it into a weapon to kill more innocent people? Not a chance! Let's just destroy the papers so no one gets any bright ideas and get the hell out of here. This place is a dead end anyway."

They carefully burned all the papers they could find and dumped the device, along with the table and everything on it, into the water. The pool proved to be deep and the water clear enough that they could watch the items sink into the watery depths for a surprisingly long time by the light of their meager lantern. When all trace of the potentially devastating invention was gone, the brothers found their way back out through the mining tunnels the way they came in.

Al argued briefly for following the tunnels the other way to try and find the other entrance but Ed was grumpy, cold and hungry. And when Ed's stomach entered the argument, it usually always won.

* * *

 **A/N:** Yay, a new chapter!

 **1.** This chapter was mostly flashback, but important nonetheless.

 **2.** I know it's been a while since the last chapter, but this time has not been spent idle. I've been working on fleshing out the ending of the story and this has proved challenging for a number of reasons, so I ask that you be patient. Updates may not come as quickly as before but that doesn't mean I'm not working on this story, whether that be physically writing or just thinking through various scenarios.

 **3.** Enjoy!


	11. Bigger Problems

The tunnel narrowed significantly after the first two hundred metres so that the two of them had to walk in single file in order to do so comfortably. Havoc went first. He had attempted, at first, to dodge the puddles and pools of water, some of them deceptively deep, but once his shoes and socks were thoroughly soaked, he gave up entirely and just plodded on.

Edward didn't fare any better. His boots and socks were soaked within minutes as well since some of the larger pools spanned the width of the tunnel and couldn't be avoided. His right foot was freezing and he hoped the mineral rich water wasn't doing any long lasting damage to his automail.

He remembered the tunnels in a vague sort of way from his and Al's investigation last fall. The fog, the dampness and the glittering quartz in the walls were all familiar. The water was new. He guided Havoc from behind as best as he could but when the man was told to turn left at a branching intersection, he plunged into an inconspicuous pool of freezing water. It was so deep that the top of his ginger hair disappeared completely below the surface before the man reappeared, spitting and spluttering. He pulled himself back up on the ledge with little help from Edward, who was busy trying to control his laughter.

The man glared at the alchemist. "It's _not_ funny," he ground out, shivering as he attempted to shake the water from his soaked jacket.

Ed took pity on the man and used alchemy to dry the water out of his clothes in a large puff of steam. "Sorry," he said without a trace of remorse, "this place wasn't so flooded last time I was here," he admitted.

"Well, unless we plan on swimming across, we'll have to go another way," said Havoc, still shivering, but feeling slightly better now that his clothes were dry.

There was only one way to go at this point. Shining the light down the tunnel, the two looked dubiously at this second path. Edward wasn't sure where this tunnel led and Havoc eyed the lowering ceiling with a touch of annoyance.

Just beneath the surface of the pooling water, iron rails were visible. They had once carried carts laden with mined stone out from deep inside the mine. The tunnel was low and it was clear that it had been built to accommodate the rail carts only or perhaps someone sitting inside a cart.

Edward cleared the ceiling with a few inches to spare and so he went in first, light in hand, but Havoc had to hunch awkwardly which, coupled with his wet feet, recent plunge into icy water and the occasional cold drip down the back of his neck, amounted to making him rather miserable. He wondered, not for the first time, why he thought this had been a good idea.

Because of his hunched position, it was more comfortable to stare at his feet than what was ahead of him and so Havoc didn't notice Ed stop until he bumped into him, hitting his nose painfully on the back of the teen's hard head. He instinctively jerked his head back, smashing into the low ceiling as well.

"Dammit!" he swore, backpedaling a few splashing steps, rubbing his smarting face.

Edward ignored him. "Did you hear that?"

Havoc couldn't hear anything over the throbbing in his face but he tried anyway. "Hear what?"

"Voices," the teen trailed off distracted.

Havoc couldn't help himself. With his hand holding his tender nose (which was not bleeding, thankfully), a hint of his old goofy grin graced the corner of his mouth as he raised an eyebrow. "You're hearing voices?"

Ed was not listening to him anymore. In fact, Havoc rather felt like he may as well not be there at all. Just as he was about to ask the boy to elaborate, Ed took off without warning.

"Hey! Where are you- dammit kid!" He splashed after the alchemist but despite his longer legs, his awkward hunched position in the low tunnel made it difficult to run and he fell behind. When the light disappeared, Havoc had to rely only on the tiny flame from his lighter to show the way.

When he reached a branching tunnel, he stopped, calmed his breathing, and listened. "Chief!" he called. Only his echo answered. He swore violently. Looking first down one tunnel then the other, it was impossible to tell which way Edward had gone. Even the telltale ripples left by the teen's splashing feet were concealed by the dripping water which, in some places, was more of a small cascade.

He swore again. Havoc wanted to strangle the kid at this very moment. When they got back, Mustang was going to hear a rather scathing report on the young alchemist's blind disregard for teamwork protocol.

The man looked between both paths several times and chose one at random. He went left.

* * *

Edward went right, though Havoc had no way of knowing this.

Edward was known for his ability to focus. It was what allowed him to sit for hours in the library reading without noticing the passing of time. Al would attest that once Ed focused on something, everything else disappeared.

Edward was not even aware that he'd left Havoc behind until it was far too late. But he just shrugged, figured the man could look after himself and carried on. He was certain that the voice he'd heard belonged to the man they were after.

After splashing through the low tunnel, Ed found himself back in the main path, just outside of the room he and Al had identified as "the lab". The lights were on and he could see shadows moving in the room beyond. He quickly put out his light and carefully made his way to the door, staying clear of the opening.

There were, in fact, two voices, neither of which the alchemist recognized. They spoke with a heavy accent he couldn't quite place, switching between Amestrian and another language. After a quick conversation, the two men left the room, their voices echoing further along the corridor at the opposite end of the room.

All was silent.

Edward peaked around the door carefully and, seeing the room empty, crept inside staying close to the wall. He scanned the area for hiding places in case he needed to take cover quickly. The room had been cleaned up somewhat since the last time he'd seen it.

There was still junk and broken equipment everywhere, but the bulk of it had been pushed into the corners at the edges of the room. The tables had been cleared off but not entirely cleaned. The lab was just as dusty and dirty as he remembered. In the dust, however, he could see the flow of traffic from many feet and the spots on the tables where objects had been placed.

The whole place had the look of a room that was being packed up and emptied.

Seeing and hearing no one, he made his was across the room to the open door opposite and quietly made his way along the tunnel. He heard the water falling, just like last time. He also heard voices in the distance and tried to stay in the shadows as much as possible, uncomfortably aware that he had little to no cover. There was a new smell too, one that he couldn't quite place. There was the musty smell of a damp space. An earthy, natural smell from the stone, but below that there was something else. Like someone's sweaty workout clothes.

He came to the wider space with the cells and stopped.

Or the stench of too many unwashed bodies in a small space.

The rusted metal bars had been replaced with new shiny iron. The doors padlocked on the outside. And lots of curious eyes turning to stare at him from dirty faces on the other side.

The cells were packed with people. He saw people of all ages, men and women in dirty ragged clothes. They looked back him with a hint of fear, but mostly open curiosity, and no one spoke. They just stared.

He stared back. He wasn't really sure what he was looking at. Whatever this was, it was more than just one man and a scheme to get rich quick. Edward wondered, not for the first time, just what exactly he was sticking his nose into this time.

Before he had a chance to do more than stare, he felt the unmistakable point of a weapon press into his back.

 _Gun_ supplied his mind, noticing the bluntness of the object.

He lifted his hands on either side in a show of surrender while his mind raced. And despite the "genius" label that people liked to plaster him with, his brilliant mind came up to one short but useless thought.

Shit.

* * *

Jean really hoped there weren't any more deep holes like the one he'd plunged into earlier. He could barely see earlier with the flash light Ed had rigged up, much less with the measly flame from his cigarette lighter. And he knew he was burning through the fuel in the tiny chamber very quickly.

Gradually, the darkness lightened. It was so gradual, in fact, that Havoc didn't notice right away. He noticed first that he no longer had to squint so much to see his own feet and then realized it was because there was another, better, source of light coming down the tunnel from up ahead.

Now he could see the narrow rails that once carried mining cars through the low tunnel. At his feet, he spotted a rusted metal rod. He stared at it, realized he had no weapon of any kind and decided that the tool, which turned out to be an old pry bar, was better than nothing. He picked it up, put away his light and advanced cautiously. If there _were_ other people in these tunnels, he wanted to be the one to surprise them, and not the other way around.

With practiced ease, the man made his way stealthily to the end of the tunnel and crouched low to make himself less visible. The tunnel came into a cavernous room lit by spotlights rigged up on constructed wooden platforms. Several large cargo trucks were parked in a line facing away from the small tunnel and towards a larger, dark opening on the far side. Scattered around were piles of crates and random equipment.

With the exception of a slight buzz from the electric lights and a far off rumble, the place was deathly silent. Havoc stayed in position for a long time, watching, waiting and listening. Nothing moved.

Making a decision, he made his way to the crates, staying low and keeping an ear out for any signs of activity. Lifting the lid of the nearest crate, the soldier peeked inside. The crate was filled with rows of neatly packed, unmarked paper tubes about the size of a man's thumb. He discovered, after picking one up gingerly, that they were quite heavy for their size.

Havoc knew what they were, but tore one open to make sure. With a slight tinkle, a neat row of shiny copper coins slid out onto his palm. They looked newly minted, shiny and unblemished the way circulated coins looked. He looked at the row in his hand, then at the hundreds of rows of rolled coins in the crate and at the dozens of crates sitting, waiting to be loaded.

 _That is a lot of coins,_ he thought, not even attempting to do the math on the value of this hoard.

A noise startled him and he ducked down instinctively, watching through the tiny space between crates. He didn't see anyone.

As he scanned the area, something peculiar caught his eye.

A boot.

He couldn't see the person attached to the boot but by the angle and position, this person was laying on the ground, or possibly sitting, propped up against the wheel on the other side of the nearest truck. They weren't moving, which was either a good thing or a concern. It wasn't Fullmetal's boot, anyway. Havoc thought he'd recognize those black boots with the flashy red soles anywhere.

He waited several long minutes but, again, saw no one and made a move to the cover of the truck. He hugged the tailgate and peaked around the back corner.

There were two men, actually. Both propped up against the side of the truck unmoving, their heads hanging down. Havoc moved up to them and checked for signs of life, which he found.

 _Just knocked out then_.

The men were decked out in army fatigues, but not ones he recognized. Their weapons were still in their holsters.

Without much hesitation, Havoc helped himself to both guns, checking them for ammunition automatically with long ingrained experience. It felt good to be armed, he felt much less naked this way.

He had so many questions about what he was seeing he didn't even know where to start. But he filed them away as they came. Experience told him he couldn't be made distracted by them until he was sure that he and the State Alchemist he was looking for were not in immediate danger. He looked down at the men again and wondered if Ed had come through here.

It was certainly his style, to incapacitate his opponent rather than seriously injure. And he wouldn't have cared enough to strip the men of their weapons.

A sound caught his attention and this time he was sure there was someone else near. Ahead, in one of the trucks. He heard the shuffling of footsteps and what sounded like tools clinking together.

Crouching low he looked under the line of trucks and saw booted feet standing in front of one of the first vehicles. The person was standing as one would when looking under the hood.

Keeping his weapon at the ready, he made his way stealthily towards the front of the line.

* * *

The man spoke to him in a language the alchemist did not understand and pushed the weapon harder into his back. He thought he recognized some of the words but couldn't quite place them. He did nothing.

The man spoke to him more harshly, pushing him hard enough to make him stumble forward a little. But this was a calculated move on Edward's part. He purposely stumbled more than he would have, disguising the motion as a natural blunder.

Twisting fluidly, he made a grab for the weapon with his automail hand while placing his feet to deliver a sweeping kick on the man's legs. He never got the chance. As soon as his hand closed around the weapon, the man fell into an unconscious heap at his feet and instead the alchemist found himself turned to where his opponent once stood, holding a gun by its barrel and staring at Sean Cann. Holding a piece of wood like a club.

They stared at each in equal and open confusion for what seemed like a solid minute.

Sean broke the silence first. He shifted his eyes down to the man he had just knocked out and winced. "That's going to hurt in the morning," he said casually, with a touch of concern for the man.

Edward couldn't really care less for a man who had just held him at gunpoint. He was still alive, and that's all that mattered. "Sean! What are you doing here?"

Sean looked back at him with a bewildered expression, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. "Me? What are _you_ doing here? I thought you were-," he stopped himself and seemed to be thinking carefully about his choice of words. He lowered his voice. "I heard about the hotel. I-,". Sean lowered his makeshift weapon to his side. "I thought you were dead," he finally admitted somberly.

Edward's mood darkened at the reminder of the deliberate attempt on his life. But outwardly, he offered a cocky grin. "Not that easy to kill," he replied flippantly.

Sean gave him a genuine smile of relief which dropped as soon as someone coughed and they were reminded that they had captive audience. Literally.

Edward looked around quickly, searching for any more possible guards but they seemed to be alone, excepting the prisoners. He lowered his voice cautiously anyway.

"What the fuck is going on in here?"

Sean shook his head. "Wish I knew. After I heard about the hotel, I remembered what you said about this place and figured it wouldn't hurt to come check it out. Looks like you were right."

Edward shook his head. "Sometimes I hate being right. But I wasn't expecting," he gestured to the prisoners, "this. Who the hell are these people?" The alchemist knew that didn't really matter. There was no doubt in his mind that he was going to help them. He frowned as he looked over at his friend, thinking.

"This is more than a bit of counterfeit, isn't it?" he asked, his lips pressed into a grim line.

Sean didn't answer.

* * *

They reacted at the same time. As soon as Havoc rounded the front of the truck, his weapon at the ready, the man raised his own weapon. Whether the man had known someone was there or the reaction was purely instinctual, Havoc didn't know. But it left them at a standstill, neither moving a muscle. In a few seconds, the Lieutenant had taken in everything from the open hood of the truck, to the tools, to the obvious sabotage being committed on the engine of said truck and the man himself.

Havoc recognized the man immediately as the off-duty officer he had spoken to on the street outside the burning hotel. The one Edward had claimed to be Ben Hartley.

Hartley's serious scruffy face turned to surprise as he recognized Havoc too. "I know you," he said roughly. "You're that Lieutenant."

"And you must be Hartley," answered Havoc shortly. He wanted to get his facts straight and not just rely on Edward's claim that the man he had spoken to was the same the alchemist was after. The man nodded after another tense second.

"Great," continued Havoc lightly, infusing his words with a bit of cheer while keeping the gun steady, "now that we've been properly introduced, you should know that I don't want to shoot you, but I will if you don't comply."

Hartley frowned as he thought something over. He seemed to be arguing mentally with himself trying to make a decision. Havoc had become quite good at reading people in his years working under Mustang and saw the moment when the officer came to a decision.

"Second Lieutenant Havoc, eh?" The man laughed a little to himself. "You work for Colonel Mustang don't you?" he said, more of a statement than a question. Before waiting for Havoc's answer he lowered his gun slightly in a less offensive position but still at the ready. "Relax, son. I don't want to shoot you either," he added gruffly. "Just that you can't be sure who to trust these days, if you know what I mean."

Whatever Havoc was expecting, that wasn't it. He couldn't mask his own surprise. And then, as if someone had taken all the bits and pieces of information he'd collected over the past weeks, shaken them, and let them fall into a different pattern, things clicked together in his mind.

Someone watching could have claimed to see an electric bulb light up behind the soldier's eyes. He lowered his own weapon.

"You're him," he stated just as plainly as Hartley had proclaimed Havoc was working under Mustang. "You're the informant."

The man gave a rare, crooked smile and a nod

Havoc came to his own decision to trust this man, despite Ed's claims.

"Tell me everything you know."

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **1\. Confused? That's okay, you're meant to be. Things are moving forward (finally) and I've still got a few surprises coming.**

 **2\. A few people have mentioned that this is more about the crime/coins story than the whole violin thing. *shrugs* The first chapter was written as a stand alone one-shot and was originally posted as such. Then, I decided to write a second chapter and things escalated from there. The violin storyline has not been abandoned, but let's face it: How much action can you expect from one guy teaching another guy how to play an instrument. Consider both storylines as complimenting each other.**

 **3\. Remember that Ed is only thirteen and this story takes place early in his days as a State Alchemist. Not only is he naturally reckless, let's just say his experience working with other people can be narrowed down to one person: Al. Al knows Ed. Al knows, most of the time, what Ed is thinking and has no trouble keeping up. Havoc, not so much.**

 **4\. I will try try try to stay on top of updates for this story and apologize if you have to go back to the previous chapter to remember what is going on. That being said, I do this in my spare time and with a major (happy) life change about to happen for me, that spare time is likely to be reduced. Tiny humans will do that to you. -_-'**

 **5\. Enjoy!**


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